


Adventures in the MirrorVerse

by Axxor



Category: Worm (Web Serial Novel)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Mirror Universe, Multi, Oral Sex, Parent/Child Incest, Pseudo-Incest, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 23:38:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 51,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2407103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Axxor/pseuds/Axxor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a mirror world, where heroes are darkly reflected as villains, and villains surprisingly reflected as heroes.<br/>The Triumvirate become the Horsemen; the Endbringers become the Lifegivers.  The Slaugherhouse Nine is here called Nonagon, while the Protectorate is the Protection Syndicate.<br/>Taylor Hebert may be the main character, but she is in no way the hero of the piece ...</p><p>A clean version, minus all the sex, can be found on Fanfiction.net.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nonagon

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Reflecting](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/76964) by Trump-12. 



Hovering above the battlefield, Death gave an inarticulate scream of rage. The flowing midnight draperies of her costume were in rags, the deaths-head face paint smudged and smeared, but she didn't care. She hefted the fuel tanker over her head, selected her target, and heaved. The star-shaped scar around her left eye, remnant of the first and last time she had tested her strength against Monochrome, seemed to glow as brightly as the crimson orb within its socket.  
  
Down below, Razor glanced up, even as he laughed and danced aside from an attack by Shock. The slim young woman growled in frustration as one lighting-fast blow after another slid past the cheerfully taunting hero, almost as if she were telegraphing her attacks. She paused to gather her strength while Awe, a former hero who had turned villain to be at her side, took up the attack.  
  
The blood-red lines on her daringly cut midnight-black costume began to glow brighter and brighter. Then she glanced up. Her face turned white under the mask.  
  
"Death, you fucking maniac!" she screamed.  _"Awe!"_  
  
Her lover was at her side in a moment, staring up at the tumbling, falling fuel tanker. They had just a couple of seconds before it hit. Hoping that her power had recharged enough, Shock grabbed Awe and bolted out of there.  
  
Razor looked up at the tanker; there was no way he could evade the blast radius in time, so he didn't try. Instead, he rocked back on his heels, humming a little tune as he folded his straight razor and put it away.  
  
In the last instant before it struck, a black-and-white blur cut across the battlefield, bare feet carving through treacherous rubble as if it didn't even exist.  
  
The tanker landed. Metal ruptured, fuel spilled, sparks flew. Ignition was a matter of seconds. A cloud of dark oily smoke climbed above the inferno below, while the concussion wave rolled across the battlefield.  
  
On a nearby rise, Medic looked up from the man whose life she was saving. Her hands continued their careful work, stitching and sealing away organs, as she gasped in horror.  
  
"Crag! Is Jack all right?”  
  
The immense man standing alongside her, fully ten feet tall and so broad that he still looked short, patted her carefully on one shoulder. His skin was dark and pitted; he had survived virtually everything that a man could be subjected to, but it had taken its toll on him. Now he was an avowed pacifist, offering harm to none that did not threaten him or his friends.  
  
"Aye, lass, he will be," he told her in a warm Scottish burr that resonated in his deep chest. "Mister Jack is canny, he is indeed. And Mistress Monochrome will be at his side, I'll wager."  
  
Without even looking, she closed her patient's chest cavity and began to put the final stitches in.  
  
"I hope so," she replied. "He took me in, you know, after my parents died. I don't know what I'd do without him."  
  
She felt the comforting touch of his broad hand on her shoulder once more. "Aye, lass," he agreed quietly. "None of us would, and that's a fact."  
  
The glittering form of Crystal Angel, silicate wings spread wide, swooped low over the still-fierce blaze. Then, as the forms of Razor and Monochrome, walking hand in hand like newlyweds, left the fire, she soared high into the air.  
  


<><>

  
An hour later, they were convened in the ruined building they were using as a base; Razor, Monochrome, Medic, Crag and Crystal Angel. Joining the core members of Nonagon were the reformed villain Deathtrap, now calling himself Sanctuary; the pyro-controlling Firedancer; the lovely Autumn; and the stolid power-neutralising Equaliser.  
  
"Good to see we all survived," Razor began brightly. "It seems that we have nine lives."  
  
There was a pause as everyone assimilated the pun, then groans arose from around the makeshift meeting table. Even Monochrome, characteristically silent as she was, put a hand over her eyes.  
  
"Jack, that was  _awful,"_  complained Medic.  
  
"Aye, 'twas truly painful," Crag rumbled. "I'm of half a mind to tear your arms off and beat ye about the heid with them."  
  
"Do it," urged Medic. "I promise to sew them back on again. Eventually."  
  
Laughing, Razor held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, that was bad, I admit it. Crag, I thought you only used violence to answer against violence?"  
  
"And what do ye think yon jest was, ye great daft pillock?" retorted Crag, grinning broadly. "'Twas GBH of the earholes, so it was."  
  
Razor shook his head, grinning equally broadly. "So," he asked, "Did anyone get an idea of what the Horsemen wanted?"  
  
"I may have an idea," intruded a new voice. People moved aside to allow the wheelchair-bound man through to the table.  
  
Razor's demeanour became more subdued, more respectful. "Doctor Manton," he greeted the newcomer. "Did you see much of the fight?"  
  
"Only a little, I'm afraid," responded the bearded man in the wheelchair. "But I think I know what they were after. This may have been a diversionary attack. They might be trying to uncover the secrets to Process Foxtrot Sixteen-Eleven."  
  
All eyes turned to Monochrome; the young woman ducked her head modestly.  
  
"As you all know," began Manton, with the attitude of someone poking an open wound to see exactly how much it was going to hurt, "I pioneered the process on my own daughter. I'm not proud of myself for that; I was not a good man, then."  
  
Monochrome moved from Jack's side to kneel before the man in the wheelchair; she took his hands in hers. She did not speak, for she could not; the process that had made her invulnerable and unaging, that had rendered her free of the need for such things as food, water and even air, had also frozen her vocal cords forever.  
  
Death, the vicious and unpredictable leader of the Horsemen, had been through a derivative process; while this had given her the ability to fly, it had also left her without the true invulnerability enjoyed by Monochrome.  
  
"So what do the Horsemen want it for?" asked Medic, although she feared she knew the answer.  
  
William Manton stroked his daughter's hair. His voice was sombre. “Why, to use on themselves, of course."


	2. Winslow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, Taylor Hebert has to suffer with bullying-related issues ...

> I eyed the clock again, disfavourably. I didn't need this shit, didn't need to be sitting in class while the seconds crawled down to lunchtime. And I didn't need this class, with that in-your-face do-gooder Mister Stick-Up-The-Ass Gladly. In my opinion, he spent far too much time watching what we were doing. I couldn't get away with  _anything_  in that goddamn class.
> 
> I'd tried calling him 'Mr G' once, and he'd cut me off at the knees.  _Me_.
> 
> "Ms Hebert," he'd lectured me in that goddamn aggravating gentle-but-firm tone he used for talking with 'trouble' students, "if you want to earn respect in life, you must learn to give respect. And we start by addressing one another in a respectful manner. If I were to address our good Principal Blackwell as 'yo, beeyatch!', that would be a sign that I did not respect her."
> 
> He had paused to allow the laughter to die down, a light smile on his lips. I wanted to wipe it off his face. He was making the class laugh while talking to me. That was almost as bad as them actually laughing at me.
> 
> "And so," he had concluded, "it is only proper and respectful for you to refer to me as 'Mr Gladly', and to the other teachers and staff by their full surnames, using an appropriate honorific. Do you understand?"
> 
> "Yeah, I understand," I had replied grudgingly. He had raised one eyebrow slightly, and I had hastily added, "Mr Gladly."
> 
> This wasn't me surrendering or him winning or any shit like that, you understand. When Mr Gladly - shit, he had me doing it now - when  _the G-bitch_  explained something like this, and the student pretended not to understand, that student got to write lines. I was sick and tired of writing lines. Especially since he made me do them all in pencil, after the one time he caught me photocopying a finished sheet.
> 
> So yeah, I was sick of the class, I was sick of the teacher, I was sick of the school, I was sick of Brockton Fucking Bay. I was destined for bigger things.
> 
> And yet, there I was, stuck in class with all of the know-nothing  _sheep_ le. The universe owed me. And I was going to collect. Looking around the class, I selected my target, just as the bell rang.
> 
> <><>
> 
>   
> Madison hurried up the steps ahead of me. She obviously didn't realise I was there, which was her bad luck. After all, it wasn't like I hadn't done this before.
> 
> I did see her stop and look back for just a moment, but I was a flight below her, and she didn't look down over the rail.  _Gotta be smarter than that, Mads._
> 
> I watched my lunch money disappear into the third floor girls' bathrooms, then followed her in. By the time I got in there, she was in a stall; I leaned against the sinks and waited, arms crossed. Several girls entered, glanced at me then looked away.
> 
> <><>
> 
>   
> That was the way it should be; Winslow might be a squeaky-clean school, heavy on rules enforcement, but Dad controlled the Dockworkers' Collective with an iron hand, and had a hand in several others. If he said someone didn't work, that someone didn't work. And so, in my first month or so at Winslow, I had made a point of finding out whose parents were members of which union or collective. Then I had made it clear to them that if they crossed me, their dads didn't work.
> 
> Some had disbelieved me; I had spoken to Dad, and a few guys got laid off, or transferred to ass-end jobs. Fathers of people at Winslow. After that, no-one crossed me.
> 
> Except Emma.
> 
> Emma was my big disappointment in life. We'd been best friends since grade school; her dad was an industrial relations lawyer, and he'd collaborated with Dad on a few matters that had made them more than a bit of money. Which was why I was attending Winslow, and not some shithole like Arcadia.
> 
> But Emma was here too. Sometime in the summer break between middle school and junior high, she'd gone all soft, grown a conscience. She was the one who spoiled my fun, way too many times. I couldn't frighten her with my Dad, and I couldn't have her beaten up; anyone who tried that got their asses royally kicked by Sophia Hess.
> 
> Sophia was the other thorn in my side. Emma had obviously met her over summer break, and a more sickeningly nice person you could never hope to push down an elevator shaft. She had a good word for everyone, but she wasn't a pushover like you'd think. Apparently she took the idea of 'turn the other cheek' not all that seriously, and was quite good at looking after herself. I'd never tried conclusions with her, and I didn't like my chances if I did. It was really irritating; if only there'd been some white-supremacist gang in town, I could've gotten Dad to sic them on her. But there wasn't, so meh.
> 
> <><>
> 
>   
> The other girls finished up and got out, fast. When Madison opened the stall door, there was just me and her in the bathrooms, just the way I wanted it. I stepped forward, pushing her back into the stall.
> 
> “Madison, hi,” I greeted her, a wide smile on my face. “Just the person I was looking for. I forgot my lunch money, so I'm gonna need to borrow yours.”
> 
> “Taylor,” she ventured. “Look, I don't have any lunch money, I brought my own lunch today, see?”
> 
> She opened her bag, and I did see the lunch in there. It looked like a nice one; a pita wrap, juice, a banana.
> 
> “No, no, no, no, no,” I admonished her, shaking her by the shoulders like a rag doll. “That's not the way it works. The way it works is, you bring money in and give it to me, so I can buy something for me. I don't want your lunch. And apparently nor do you.”
> 
> In front of her eyes, I pulled out the pita wrap and opened it, spilling the contents into the toilet bowl. The pita bread I tore up and dropped in there as well. Next, I got her juice out, opened it up, and took a good long drink. Then I poured the rest of it over her head. It got in her hair, over her top, and even on her skirt. Finally, I got out the banana.
> 
> She was crying by now; have I mentioned how much I hate crybabies and wimps? No time at all for them.
> 
> I was just about to start peeling the banana – I was going to smear it all over her face and hair – when I heard a most unwelcome voice.
> 
> “That's enough, Taylor. Let her go.”
> 
> I looked around. Emma stood there, leaning on one side of the stall door way. Sophia leaned on the other side.
> 
> “Oh, for fuck's sake, Emma. Can't you just mind your own fucking business for once?”
> 
> She ignored me, looking past me to Madison.
> 
> “Come on out, Mads,” she urged the petite girl. “She won't stop you.”
> 
> Madison ducked out past me, giving me one last frightened glance on the way past.
> 
> “Come on,” Emma told her. “Let's go get you cleaned up. I'll buy you lunch.”
> 
> “You won't be able to hide behind them forever, Clements,” I called out. “I'll get back to you.”
> 
> Sophia gave me a flat stare. “Why don't you just shut your mouth, Taylor,” she advised.
> 
> “Fuck you, Hess,” I replied venomously. “None of your goddamn business.”
> 
> She gave me a steady stare, then glanced behind her. “You're gonna stay in here for the next few minutes,” she stated. “Come out before then, I'll be waiting.”
> 
> <><>
> 
>   
> I waited. There wasn't much else I could do. In the meantime, I ate Madison's banana. What the hell; it was a free banana.
> 
> And I got mad. Emma and Sophia had barged in on my god-given right to extract satisfaction from Madison for my missing lunch money. What right did they have? Fucking seriously?
> 
> I ranted and raved; I may have sworn a bit. I know I kicked my bag across the bathroom floor.
> 
> The worst bit was, I could have stopped them from taking her away. But I couldn't do that. I couldn't show them what I could do. I needed to keep the secret just a little longer.
> 
> As I raged, the bugs emerged from every nook and cranny. They covered the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Highly venomous insects alighted on my arms, covered my face, until just my eyes were visible.
> 
> My anger turned to laughter, echoing harshly from the white tiles. I would show them. I would show them all.
> 
> The Hive Queen would  _rule_.

  
  



	3. Conflict of Interest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bug-controlling parahuman takes down Lung. We've read this one before. Or have we?

"The trouble with being a superhero in Brockton Bay," Marionette told them in a lecturing tone, "is that we don't cooperate."  
  
"Sure we cooperate," Tenebrae objected. "We cooperate all the time. Don't we, Rach?"  
  
The redhead nodded as she scooped a slice of pizza out of the box. "Yup," she agreed. She scratched behind the ear of the dog sitting at her feet. "Cooperation. That's us all over."  
  
"No, I get what Alec's saying," Insight told them seriously, looking up from the computer screen. "We don't cooperate with other superheroes. And that lets the villains walk all over us."  
  
"Exactly," Marionette agreed. "When was the last time anyone made any headway against the Syndicate?"  
  
There was silence, broken by the sound of four teens eating pizza, as they considered this. The Protection Syndicate was the largest and most pervasive criminal organisation in the United States. It had offshoots in every major city, and many minor ones. It even extended into Canada, where it had formed ties with the Guildsmen, a supervillain group. There were rumours that they were looking to extend into Mexico, but that the cartels were resisting the idea.  
  
The Syndicate, a shadowy group, was backed up by an even more elusive organisation, the Parahuman Retribution Tribunal. Anyone causing real trouble for the Syndicate was wont to get a visit from the PRT, and that was bad news for anyone.  
  
Insight's phone rang; she answered it. "Hello?"  
  
 _"I have disturbing news,"_  came the familiar voice of their patron.  _"It appears that Lung is making a move against you. He intends to bring you in for questioning."_  
  
"Oh, for  _crap's_  sake!" Insight muttered. "You know, we were talking about this exact thing. We're superheroes, Lung's a superhero. But just because he's got the Asian Benevolent Boyz backing him, he's all about following every single rule, every single law, down to the last crossed t and dotted i. Hell, he's even gone against the Lifegivers because they don't follow the letter of the law."  
  
 _"Perhaps this is a conversation for another time,"_  he gently chided her.  _"We need to determine your strategy."_  
  
"So you tell me," she responded. "What's the best thing to do?"  
  
 _"Too soon to tell,"_  he told her apologetically.  _"Sit tight. I'll get back to you when I get a better read on the situation."_  
  
"Fine. You know where to find us." She hung up. The others were staring at her.  
  
"Who was that?" asked Marionette.  
  
Insight sighed. "The boss. You know he likes to keep his privacy."  
  
"Okay, we got it," Marionette agreed. "But what was that about Lung?"  
  
Insight grimaced. "He's coming after us."  
  
"Oh, shit, really?" Tenebrae looked at the rest of the group. "Then why are we still here?"  
  
Rachel put her hand on his arm. "Hey, calm down. Alec and Lisa will work out a plan. They always do."  
  


<><>

  
Four hours later, they were no closer to a coherent strategy. Brian wanted to run for it and lie low, Alec advocated a frontal attack on the opposition, Rachel was in favour of cautious probing attacks, and Lisa was trying to figure out which of the three plans had the best chance of success. All she was getting out of it was a headache.  
  
"Hey, hey, hey," Alec told her soothingly, kneading her sore shoulders, "don't be so hard on yourself. You can't know everything."  
  
"But I should be able to figure this out," Lisa told him.  
  
"You should lighten up," Brian told her, picking up a controller and starting a single-player shooter. "Maybe it'll be nothing."  
  
"Yeah," Rachel told her. "When was the last time you smiled?"  
  
Lisa shook her head. "When you know as much as I do, it's no smiling matter."  
  
Her phone rang again. She snatched it up. "Hello?"  
  
Trying not to be distracted by Rachel making her dog dance on its back legs for a treat, she listened to the voice of their employer. When he finished, she acknowledged his information, and hung up.  
  
"So, boss-lady, what's the dealio?" asked Brian, pausing the game.  
  
Lisa's lips tightened in what might have been mistaken for a smile by someone who didn't know her. "We're going on the offensive."  
  


<><>

  
"Look," blustered the ABB man. "It's simple. You guys are loose cannons. Lung just wanted to bring you in, make you understand that unless we're all on the same page, you're better off behind bars."  
  
"I  _told_  you," K-9 protested. "I'm  _said_  I was sorry about what my dogs did to that street vendor's cart. And that shop window. And that taxi."  
  
Tenebrae leaned across to Marionette. "And that crosstown bus. And that poodle." He snickered.  
  
Alec shook his head. "Dude. Be serious."  
  
"I  _am_  serious. Seriously awesome. I mean, look at me. Darkness on command. How cool is that?"  
  
Marionette shook his head. "Sometimes I think you're a lost cause."  
  
"Well, at least we chased off Ashwalker," Rachel commented.  
  
"Yeah," Tenebrae grinned. "We made him haul  _ash_!"  
  
Both Insight and Marionette shook their heads sadly, although Rachel giggled a little. When she saw the others were looking, she hastily composed her expression.  
  
"So, what's next?" she asked.  
  
Marionette and Insight both spoke at the same time. "Lung."  
  
At the exact same time, Tenebrae said, "Go home."  
  
They stopped and looked at each other. "What?" asked Tenebrae. "You want us to go against  _Lung?_  He'll  _talk_  us to death!"  
  
"If we don't, then he'll keep coming," Insight told them. "And besides, the boss said we might be getting a bit of help."  
  
"Another hero? Cool," exclaimed Tenebrae.  
  
 _Not ... exactly_ , thought Insight grimly.  _But I'll take what we can get._  
  


<><>

  
They were still two blocks away, riding on dogback, when they saw the glow of the fire, the roaring of Lung.  
  
"Whoa ..." breathed Tenebrae. "He's  _pissed_."  
  
They came closer, saw Lung menacing a slight figure on the rooftop, and came in for the attack. Brutus hit Lung hard, slamming him off the rooftop; the others slipped off their dogs, which then followed K-9's commands to take the evangelical superhero down a notch or two.  
  


<><>

  
As they approached her, she straightened from a crouch and looked them over. The blank lenses of her mask gave her a creepy look.  
  
Her voice was cold. "I had it under control."  
  
"Sure, sure," agreed Tenebrae. "You did us a real solid there. Just thought we'd give you a helping hand."  
  
She said nothing, looking them over one at a time.  
  
"Look," Marionette began, approaching her. "Are you hurt?"  
  
Insight shook her head. "She's not hurt. She's just pissed that she couldn't take Lung down with the bugs she was controlling."  
  
That got her a sharp look. "Who the hell are you guys, anyway?" asked the costumed girl in the bug-themed outfit.  
  
"Oh," replied Tenebrae, "we're the Upsiders. Local freelance heroes." He offered his hand with a broad grin. "And we can always do with new talent. Bug control, huh? Sounds pretty badass."  
  
 _And she's just realised she saved a bunch of heroes from being captured by Lung,_  Insight noted.  _She made a mistake. She thought he's going after villains. **She's**  a villain. She's wondering what to do._  
  
"I ... don't think so, not at the moment," the bug girl temporised.  
  
"Look," Marionette broke in. "I'm Marionette, the team co-leader. That's Insight, the other co-leader. That's K-9, with the dogs. And the clown here's Tenebrae. What's your name?"  
  
"Uh ... Hive Queen," the girl told them.  
  
Tenebrae grinned. "Nice."  
  
"Uh, hate to break this up," Insight told them. "But the Syndicate's incoming."  
  
K-9 nodded and whistled sharply, the massively overgrown dogs soon returned to her call, leaving the groaning form of Lung on the pavement below.  
  
"Want to come with?" asked Tenebrae. "You kicked ass tonight."  
  
"I'll take my chances," snapped Hive Queen.  
  
"Your choice," Marionette told her, climbing on to a dog. "Stay safe."  
  


<><>

  
K-9 pulled the dogs up several blocks away, and checked them over for injuries. Lung nearly always tried to go for non-lethal strikes, but accidents could happen.  
  
"What's gonna happen to him?" asked Tenebrae.  
  
"Who, Lung? Ah, the Syndicate'll try to put him on ice, then he'll heal back and get away. You know how it goes." Marionette's voice was confident.  
  
"What about the bug girl?" asked Rachel, climbing back on the dog.  
  
"Who, Hive Queen?" asked Insight. "I think we'll see her again."


	4. Losing the Bounty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: this is quite dark. You have been warned.

I had bugs crawling all over Lung when the vehicle arrived.  It was a tricked-out midnight-black Humvee with the classic S-with-crossed-broadsword-and-assault-rifle in blood-red, on the door.  I gulped despite myself; I knew that emblem.  I was about to meet one of the most famous - or infamous - members of the Protection Syndicate.  
  
A moment later, I was proved correct, as the door opened and Sellsword got out.  He wore a black helmet with a glowing red V-shaped visor; the lower half was open, showing his lower jaw and his goatee.  The rest of his costume consisted of urban-camo gear over what I strongly suspected to be low-profile body armour; his gloves and boots were of the same glossy black as the helmet.  
  
As he got out, he withdrew from the interior of the vehicle a sword as long as I was tall; the blade consisted of some sort of glossy black metal, shot through with pulsing red lines of power.  A steady sullen red glow emanated from some sort of gem set into the pommel of the sword.  
  
I had no idea how much a thing like that weighed, but he handled it easily with one hand.  Despite myself, I was impressed.  
  
But only a little bit.  I mean, come on, I'm the  _Hive Queen_.  It takes serious shit to impress _me_.  
  


<><>

  
**Elsewhere, Unbeknownst to the Hive Queen**  
  
The Empire of Enlightenment lackey ran for his life.  Victoria Dallon grinned, swooped past him, then plunged to a landing, smashing the pavement with her fist, her knee and her foot.  At the same time, her short skirt blew up to reveal that she wore nothing but a really abbreviated thong under it.  Not that her top was any better; the cleavage on that reached almost all the way to her waist.  As it was, one shapely breast spilled out, and she had to stop to tuck it back inside.   
  
This gave the EoE man time to reverse his course; she huffed an aggravated sigh, flew after him and tackled him to the ground.  Holding him down easily with her superhuman strength, she straddled his waist, and smiled down at him.  He struggled to rise; she pushed him down again.  In the process, her other breast popped out of hiding; this time, she ignored it.  
  
"So, Charlie," she purred, "we know that Lung liberated a shipment of drugs from us, last week.  And we know that he turned it over to the Empire to be destroyed.  What I want to know is, where is it being kept, Charlie?"  
  
As she spoke, she activated the aura for which she was justly famous, and which had earned her the name Teaser; beneath her, the man Charlie found himself growing more and more sexually aroused, more and more aware of the nubile body of the slender sixteen year old holding him down.  
  
She felt his penis, engorged with blood, pressing hard against his fly.  He struggled again, more weakly, his hips thrusting up against her barely-clad crotch.  
  
She leaned down and kissed him lingeringly, her tongue sliding between his unresisting lips.  His face was flushed, his panting fast and irregular.  Her other breast popped out; she rubbed them both on his chest, her engorged nipples pressing on his skin through the cloth.  
  
"You want some of this, Charlie?" she whispered.  "You want some sweet, sweet teenaged pussy?  You want to fuck my young cunt?  I know you don't get to have sex till you're married in the Empire, so how about a sneak preview?"  
  
She kissed him again, letting go his arms and wrapping her arms around his body.  He ran his hands over her back, kissing her with frantic abandon, pulling up her flimsy skirt and cupping her bare buttocks in his strong hands.  
  
"So if I let you do this, Charlie," she murmured, after dragging his lip out a little way with her teeth,,"you'll tell me everything, won't you?  Where the drugs are, how many guards, the lot?"  
  
He nodded frantically, his hands now squeezing and fondling her breasts.  His eyes were as one who has seen the Promised Land.  
  
She giggled and reached under herself, unzipping him and releasing his impressively large erection from its prison of cloth.  It sprang up, pressing hard and hot on her barely-covered vulva; he could feel her hot wetness pressing on his rampant cock.  
  
And then she raised herself slightly, pushed the front of her thong aside, and placed the thick head of his election at the wet and willing entrance to her tight young pussy.  Slowly, ever so slowly, she bore down.  He arched his back and cried out as he penetrated to the very depths of her slippery wetness, was taken in by her, was engulfed by her hot, hungry vagina.  
  
When her shaven-smooth mound rested against his thick mat of pubic hair, she began rocking back and forth, ever so slowly and teasingly.  
  
"Now, Charlie," she moaned, "Tell me.  Tell me everyth-"  
  
But she broke off, because Charlie suddenly grabbed her hips and thrust hard up inside her.  He let out a broken cry, and came; she could feel his hot semen pumping into her tender young womb, filling her to the brim.  
  
He subsided under her, smiling a dopey smile.  
  
"Fuck," she growled.  She could feel his penis shrinking, retracting from inside her.  "I don't suppose you're willing to tell me anyway?"  
  
"Tell you what?" replied Charlie dazedly.  
  
And that was the other problem.  Once someone orgasmed under the effects of her lust aura, they weren't good for much for a while after.  
  
She got up off of him and pulled her costume back into place.  Then she pulled out her phone and dialled a number.  
  
"Sis?  Yeah, me.  Can you come meet me?  I got a problem."  
  


<><>

  
**Meanwhile, Back at Hive Queen's Location**  
  
 “The fuck are you?” growled Sellsword, pointing the blade of his claymore at me.  I'd read around on the net; that sword was apparently packed with more holy-shit Tinker tech than the entire fucking Humvee he rode around in.  If he wanted to, he could could electrocute me, blast me with fire, short out all the electronics I was carrying around … or, you know, stab me.  And I had a sneaking feeling that my black widow spider web costume wasn't going to protect me against that sword.  
  
“Hive Queen,” I told him defiantly, surrounding myself with bugs.  “And I fucking took  _Lung_  down.”  
  
“Huh,” he responded, looking down at the fallen hero.  Lung wore a costume reminiscent of a dragon, complete with wings coming out of the back.  But he had a reputation for never going over the top, never hurting anyone who didn't deserve it, and never, ever, breaking the law.  
  
“So what happens now?  I get the bounty, right?”  
  
He smiled, or at least showed his teeth.  “Nope.  I load him in my vehicle, and  _I_  go and collect the bounty.”  
  
“Hey, wait just a fucking second!” I yelled.   _“I_  fucking took him down!”  
  
“And those heroes who just left had nothing to do with it?” he asked.  “Oh yeah, I know they were here.  I've been looking to get a crack at them for weeks now.  Especially the Thinker they've got with them.  Little bitch keeps second-guessing me.”  
  
Going by the ugly tone in his voice, I guessed Insight was in for a bad time if he ever captured her alive.  
  
“He was about done when they got here,” I blustered.  “My defeat, fair and square.”  
  
“Fair and square?”  He laughed, loud and long.  “Sweetcakes, you're still in fucking diapers.  What are you, thirteen?”  
  
“Fifteen,” I gritted.  
  
“Fuck me, they're starting them young these days.  Well, fifteen year old Hive Queen, what the fuck made you think that  _villains_  would act fair with each other?  You get what you can, and if someone fucks you over, you either fuck them over in return, or you say thank you sir, can I have some more.  You don't go bleating about 'fair'.  For fuck's sake.”  
  
He bent over Lung and injected him with something; the groaning hero immediately quieted.  Then he hefted him with one arm and walked him toward the rear of the Humvee.  
  
“Okay then, why don't you just, I dunno, cut his head off and take that in for the bounty?” I asked.  “Why leave him alive?”  
  
“Because some heroes saw him alive after he was defeated, dummy,” he informed me bluntly.  “If he turns up dead, they start killing ours, and pretty soon it's an all-out war.  There are rules for a reason.”  
  
The rear of the Humvee opened, and he dumped the unconscious hero inside, then fastened him down to ring-bolts.  As he closed it down again, he turned to me.  “I'll pass the word that you're looking for work, if you want.  We can always do with more kids in the Minions.”  
  
“Fuck off and die in a fire,” I snarled.  “I beat him fair and square.”  
  
He chuckled, vastly amused.  “Well, the offer's there.  Take it, or not.  I don't give a shit.”  
  
Stowing the sword back in the front of the Humvee, he climbed back in, closed the door, and drove off.  
  
I swore and ranted and raved a bit, but nothing would change the fact that Sellsword had stole my defeat – and my bounty – from under me.  
  
 _Fuck._  
  


<><>

  
**Back to Teaser and Charlie …**  
  
She turned up twenty minutes later, stalking into the alley with her midnight-black robes billowing behind her.  Charlie was sitting up, looking at Teaser hopefully, when she arrived; he saw her, and blanched.  
  
“Seriously, what the fuck, sis?” she asked.  “You can't even fuck information out of  _one_  low-level moron?”  
  
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” moaned Vicky, who had fallen to her knees.  “I tried, I really did.  But as soon as he was inside me, he came straight away.”  
  
Pandemic rolled her eyes.  “Should have blown him first, sis.  Do I have to tell you  _everything?”_  
  
“I don't see what's wrong with beating him up for the information.  That's what I  _used_  to do.  I don't know why I started fucking them ...”  Her voice trailed off as she seemed to lose interest in what she was saying.  Pandemic watched, with a secret smile on her lips.  
  
The brunette grabbed a handful of her sister's hair and twisted; Vicky moaned in pain and arousal.  
  
“Now I'm going to have to interrogate him myself,” hissed Pandemic.  “And then … I'll deal with you.”  She caressed Vicky's cheek with her palm.  Her power caused changes to happen in Vicky's brain.  She knew her sister's brain so well now; it was so simple to cause the changes she wanted.  
  
Vicky whimpered in protest, then quickly forgot what she was whimpering about.  All she knew was that she was terribly, terribly aroused, and that if she didn't start masturbating  _now_ , something really bad would happen.  
  
Pulling up her skirt, she ripped off her thong and began to furiously rub at herself.  Her other hand pulled her top open and began squeezing her breasts and pinch at her nipples.  She moaned in arousal and lust as she manipulated herself, shoving two and then three fingers hard into her tight wet vagina.  
  
Amy left her to it, and went to where Charlie was staring at her with terror.  
  
“No …” he whimpered.  “No … please no.”  
  
Pandemic reached out and touched him lightly, and abruptly, his attempts to scrabble backward out of the way were curtailed.  He lay limply, only his eyes rolling in their sockets.  
  
“Do you know what I'm going to do to you?” she murmured, going to her knees beside him.  
  
“Mmmmm mmm mm-MMMmmm!” he grunted.  
  
“Oh, sorry,” she chuckled.  “Forgot.  You need to be able to speak.”  A pass with her hand accomplished this.  
  
“Ohgodpleasedon't!” he blurted.  
  
“Talk to me, Charlie,” she murmured.  “The drugs.  Where are they?”  
  
Before he could even answer, she laid a cool hand on his cheek.  He looked down, saw his erection coming back, swelling, standing straight.  
  
“Oh god,” he groaned.  “Are you going to -?”  
  
“Fuck you?”  She chuckled.  “No, that's Vicky's thing.  Well, it didn't use to be, until I decided that it was.”  She looked over her shoulder, at where her sister was still frantically pleasuring herself with both hands.  “I thought she needed to be fucked by as many men as possible.  Because, you know, she helped them rape me.”  
  
“What -?” he blurted.  
  
A cold smile crossed her face.  “Imagine a superhero, a successful one.  I don't know his name, they never told me.  Imagine that he is attacked and defeated by the Brockton Bay Brigands.  They discover that he has a little girl.  Me.  And so, before they take him and throw him in the Dungeon, they tell him that they're going to be adopting me.”  
  
She exerted her power.  His erection grew some more, swelled, the purple veins standing out.  He watched it, fascinated.  
  
“And so, in time, when I was about twelve years old, my daddy, Blazer and my mommy, Flaunt, got my sister, Vicky, to lure me into the bedroom.  And then they held me down while my daddy put his thing inside me and raped me.  It hurt quite a bit,  I screamed really loudly.  And they took a video of it, and sent it to my real daddy, to hurt him too.”  
  
Her voice was quiet, musing, as she traced lines of nerves with her fingers.  Vicky's moaning and panting in the background was getting rather loud.  
  
“And then Vicky got to rape me as well, with a strap-on dildo.  Daddy Blazer and Mommy Flaunt cheered her on.  And in time, my Uncle Overpower and Aunt Laserkill joined in the fun.  They even let Cousin Eric stick it in me.  I was fucked, I was made to suck their dicks, I was made to take it in the pussy and the ass.  I was their little fuck-toy.  And they sent the videos and the pictures, of me with blood on my pussy and cum on my face, to my daddy in the Dungeon.  I imagine he must be quite insane by now.”  
  
She stroked Charlie's face.  “But do you know what happened then?”  
  
“You – you got powers?” he hazarded.  
  
“Correct,” she rewarded him with a genuine smile.  “I got powers.  Daddy Blazer was fucking me up the ass at the time.  It hurt quite a bit.  But once I got control of him, he stopped.  And then he did exactly what I told him to do.  He took it out of me, and then he made Flaunt let me touch her.  And then they made Vicky let me touch her.”  
  
Her voice was dreamy.  “I had total control after that.  And when Uncle Neil and Aunt Sarah and Eric and Crystal visited next … well, I got control of all of them.  If they hear my voice, they have to do whatever I say, and they can't even  _think_  of going against me.”  
  
He stared over at where Vicky was still masturbating herself.  Blood stained her fingers and pooled on the pavement between her thighs.  She was still gasping with arousal, even as she sobbed with pain.  
  
“But … if you have control of them … why are you -?”  
  
Her smile turned razor-edged.  _“Because I like it.”_   She drew a deep breath.  “I sent one last picture to my real daddy.  All my family, kneeling in front of me.  And then I went on doing what we did.  But we do it my way, now.  And it's a lot more fun.  We're one big happy family.”  She stroked Charlie's cheek, and his erection … exploded.  Blood vessels burst and the penis ruptured into a ruin of flesh.  
  
He screamed, staring down at the remains of what had once been a larger than average penis.  She cut off the pumping blood, caused the bones in his arms to grow, to stretch the skin and flesh covering them until a wet tearing sound heralded more pain.  His screams grew louder.  
  
She expanded his skull until his eyeballs were marbles in the sockets, then she grew the eyeballs to fit, and reduced his skull size until the eyes were bulging from the sockets once more.  Parts of his body grew, other parts shrank.  Pain unimaginable wracked his body, even as she distorted it beyond recognition.  
  
Finally, she leaned down and whispered in the one ear that was still recognisable as such.  “The drugs, Charlie.  Where are they?”  
  
He babbled the information to her, told her everything else he thought she might possibly want to know.  She cut him off in the middle of a detailed description of the last meal he had eaten.  
  
“That's enough, Charlie.  You can die now.”  Her caress on his cheek grew sharp; he screamed as the hand-print began to erode away at his skin, and the flesh beneath.  
  


<><>

  
Rising, she strolled over to where Vicky had fallen on to her side.  Teaser's breath came in whimpers as she did her best to masturbate with the ruins of her labia; her sharp fingernails and her superhuman strength had made a mess of her genitalia.  
  
“It's okay, you can stop now,” Pandemic told her sister, and touched her gently.  The torn flesh reformed; Amy thoughtfully made her sister a virgin again.  _I think I'll make Mark rape her again tonight.  Just for fun._  
  
She twisted Vicky's hair again.  Vicky moaned in pain and arousal once more.  She nuzzled Amy's hand, trying to kiss it.  
  
“I love you, Amy,” she whimpered.  “I love you.”  
  
“I know,” purred Amy.  She lifted Vicky to her feet by her hair.  “Should I make you go topless for the next week to prove it?”  
  
“If you want me to,” Vicky agreed eagerly.  
  
“Or maybe bottomless.  Not even that skirt, or that thong,” mused Amy.  
  
“I could do that.”  Vicky pulled the skirt off, and ran her bloodstained fingers over her thighs.  
  
“Maybe I should just make you fly around naked and offer yourself to anyone who asks.”  
  
“Oooh,” Vicky replied, snuggling up to her.  Pandemic let her sister kiss her; she actually rather enjoyed that.  Vicky was struggling out of her top while still kissing her, so Pandemic got to run her hands over her sister's naked body.  
  
“I'm thinking we might even change your name for the week, so people know what you're good for,” she murmured, pinching Teaser's nipple.  
  
“I'd like that,” Teaser replied, moaning in arousal.  “What are you going to call me?”  
  
Pandemic pondered.  “Maybe … Glory Hole.”  
  
“I'll be  _everyone's_  glory hole,” Vicky declared.  “I'll let anyone fuck me who wants to.  Amy, do you want to fuck me?”  
  
Amy giggled.  “Maybe later.  But no, we'll leave it for the time being.  Put your clothes back on, and let's go.”  
  
“Aww, okay.  I wanted you to fuck me.”  
  
 _“Later,_  I said.”  Amy backed up her reproof with a twist of Vicky's ear that brought tears to the blonde teen's eyes.  
  
“Ow!  Sorry, sorry, sorry.”  Vicky hastened to put her damaged top and skirt on.  The thong was beyond repair.  
  
As Teaser gathered her sister into a bridal-carry, Amy casually asked her, “So, are you still fucking Chauvinist?”  
  
“Yeah,” Teaser replied as they lifted off.  “When he's not banging that little fuck-toy Redshift in the Minions.”  
  
“That's okay,” Pandemic told her.  “When we get home, I'll get out that really big dildo you like, and fuck you up the ass with it.”  
  
“Oooh, yes, please!”  
  
As they flew away, the remains of Charlie slowly dissolved and ran down a nearby drain.  
  


<><>

  
Amy kissed Vicky on the lips as they flew; Vicky responded avidly.  
  
"Do you really love me?" murmured Amy.  
  
"Oh, yes, Amy.   I really do," Teaser replied.  
  
But deep down, Pandemic knew, some small part of her sister was screaming and screaming and screaming ...  
  
She knew it, because she had made sure of it.


	5. Unravelling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this delightful chapter, we learn a little more about Taylor's home life, the history of Brockton Bay, and many other things.

"So, Dad," I ventured over breakfast, "G-bitch wants us to do presentations in class about how capes have affected life in Brockton Bay.  How do you think they have?"  
  
Dad grunted and reached for another slice of toast.  For a tall skinny guy, he could sure put it away.  He could also scare the shit out of a room full of big, burly men.  I'd seen him do it, more than once.  
  
He chewed and swallowed a bite before answering.  
  
"Well, first off, all this hero and villain shit has pulled the cops' attention away from the unions.  It's made it easier to get stuff I need passed by the city council."  Dad had several councillors in his pocket.  
  
I scribbled as I ate.  "This is good shit, Dad.  What else?"  
  
He perked up at my interest.  "Uh ... let's see.  There were a couple of rogues who tried getting work on the dockside.  They could do three, four times the work of an ordinary man, and they woulda asked for that much more too.  I fucking squashed that.  Had legislation put in to ban capes from taking jobs from ordinary joes."  
  
I scribbled some more.  "So what happened then?"  
  
"Eh, the PRT paid me a visit, told me that some capes were gonna get some jobs, on the hush-hush.  So they got jobs.  I didn't wanna end up floating face-down in the Bay, or part of some building foundation."  
  
"These were Syndicate capes, huh?"  
  
He ate some more toast.  "Guess so.  Never had no trouble, they never showed powers, got paid the same, no skin off of my nose."  
  
"Right, right.  Thanks, Dad."  
  
I got up from the table, but stopped when he grabbed my arm.  "Kiss for your old Dad?"  
  
I sighed; I knew where this was going.  But it was gonna happen, so ...  
  
Leaning down, I kissed Dad on the lips.  He kissed me back, his tongue squirming inside my mouth.  I felt one hand caressing my butt, the other pushing my top up.  
  
Dad and I had started fucking about a year after Mom left.  He hadn't quite raped me; he'd basically led into it bit by bit, until I found myself on my back with his cock inside me.  After that, I basically shrugged and went with it.  It wasn't all that uncomfortable after the first few times, and I even enjoyed it occasionally.  We didn't do it all that often, but often enough that I knew the signs.  I was already on birth control, so he didn't have to worry about condoms.  Not that he would have.  
  
He undid my skirt and I obediently stepped out of it.  My panties followed, and I took my top off.  I never wore a bra - never needed one, really - so he was able to cup and squeeze my small breasts without hindrance.  
  
I thought for a moment that he was going to bend me over the kitchen table - he'd done that before, more than once - but then he went out into the living room, undoing his belt and pulling his pants down.  His cock sprang out; it wasn't that thick, but it was long, and sometimes I swore he was touching my tonsils with it.  
  
I followed him, of course.  If we were going to fuck, we were going to fuck.  And it was kind of fun, with him shoving it into me, and feeling kind of nice if I moved the right way.  I didn't know how many other girls in school were being fucked by their fathers.  I'd bet on a few.  
  
"Couch," he grunted.  I lay down on the couch, my legs spread.  He got on top of me and kissed me; I kissed him back.  I could feel him fumbling at my pussy, pushing his finger into me.  I closed my eyes and thought about Tenebrae; he'd been fairly hunky.  I could definitely see myself fucking him, if I was interested in sex.  
  
I must have been wet enough, because Dad started pushing his cock inside me.  It was a little hard and painful at first, then I shifted my hips, and he slid into me all at once.  I opened my eyes wide and gasped, partly because it was a bit of a surprise, partly because it actually felt kind of nice, and partly because Dad liked me to act up when he was fucking me.  
  
"Oh, Dad, oh, Dad," I moaned, digging my nails into his back.  This turned him on, and he started thrusting into me.  I felt his big cock pushing up inside me, over and over again, deeper and deeper.  It was actually starting to get good - I mean, really fucking good - when he rammed all the way inside me - _that_  hurt a bit - and let go.  I pretended to cum while he spurted his semen inside me.  It was hot.  
  
When he finished cumming, he pulled out and got off of me.  Tucking his cock inside his pants, he zipped himself up.  
  
"Come on, get dressed," he told me.  "Time to get to school."  
  
And that was it.  No cuddling, no kissing, no 'I love you'.  He just fucked me, pulled out, and told me to get dressed again.  
  
So I got dressed again.  
  
And that was it.  That was my home time with Dad.  
  
He dropped me off at the bus stop, and I went to school.  
  


<><>

  
My home room teacher was Miss Knott.  I liked her.  She didn't give a shit what I did in class.  She didn't give a shit what  _anyone_  did in class.  She was about thirty, but looked about eighteen.  Long blonde hair, a figure to die for, and a raging lezzo.  She'd set class assignments, then immediately sit down and start sexting with whatever girlfriend she was going out with at the time.  And not just cute 'I wuvs you' stuff either.  This was full on explicit phone-sex; I caught a glimpse one time, and it sure as hell changed my view of the demure Miss Knott.  
  
Which meant that any girl who wanted to get out of any trouble just had to sit down, lean back, spread their legs, and show a little panty for Miss Knott to ignore whatever they did.  I was really good at 'accidentally' making my skirts ride up as I sat down, and ever since I talked Dad into getting me those sheer lace panties (yeah, he likes them too) I hadn't been done for a single thing in Miss Knott's classroom.  
  
She'd actually called me back one day, and propositioned me.  If grabbing me to her ample breasts, running her hand up my thigh and nibbling at my ear was equivalent to propositioning me.  I'd gone one better; I had pulled open her top, grabbed her breasts, and kissed her while squeezing them as hard as I could.  Then I'd whispered that I'd come back when I could, but I had to get to my next class.  
  
I'd been golden ever since.  
  
Anyway, I was online during home room.  I wanted info on Lung, Sellsword and the Upsiders.    
  
After browsing the wiki, I decided to check other parts of the boards.  
  
To my surprise, I found a note in the Connections area addressed to me.  
  
"Hive Queen," it read.  "Like Tb said last night, you did us a solid.  Like to meet?  Is."   
  
Just as I was considering what to do about this, a message came over the school PA system.  
  
 _"Taylor Hebert, please report to the Principal's office.  Taylor Hebert, please report to the Principal's office."_  
  
I looked around.   _What the fuck?_  
  
Miss Knott looked worriedly down toward me, and I shut down my computer.  Getting up, I gave her a nod and grabbed my bag.  I had a feeling I wouldn't be coming back to class.  
  


<><>

  
I was right.  
  
Principal Blackwell had gotten chapter and verse from Emma, Sophia and Madison on Friday afternoon.  Photos had been taken, as had recorded statements.  I'd neglected to flush the damn toilet, so the bits of pita bread and filling were still floating around in the bowl.  
  
So Dad and I (oh yeah, Blackwell had called Dad in from work, and was  _he_  pissed about that) had to sit and endure a lecture on bullying and how it degrades the school experience for all concerned.  Emma's Dad came in as well to support her; I could see Dad shooting betrayed glances at him.  Much as I'd felt betrayed by Emma, eighteen months ago.  
  
Anyway, the upshot of it was that I was suspended for the week.  It was actually a month of suspension, but I'd come back after one week, and I'd be on probation for the next three weeks.  If I acted out in that time, I was gone for good.  Expelled and blacklisted.  About the only place I'd be able to get into after that would be fucking Arcadia.  
  
"Now just a fucking minute," Dad protested.  
  
I didn't have any illusions that he cared about my school career.  He just wanted me out of the house; sometimes he would stay home from work, and I was never sure what he got up to, but when I got home, there were funny smells in the air and his sheets had odd stains on them.  
  
Well, I figured I could guess what the stains were.  My panties had the same stains, more than once.  
  
"Not just a minute, Danny, not any more," Mr Barnes told him.  "Emma told me what Taylor did to Madison.  What she's done to Madison in the past.  Now, if you want Madison's parents bringing suit against Taylor for aggravated assault, just keep talking."  
  
"I thought we were friends -" began Dad.  
  
"We  _were_  friends, Danny.  We worked well together, so long as it wasn't personal.  It's personal now.  Emma's shown me how necessary it is to separate ourselves from the trainwreck your daughter's making of her life, so that's exactly what we're doing."  
  
"But you don't have to -"  
  
Mr Barnes nodded.  "Yes, we do.  We need to make sure this shit doesn't spread in Winslow.  Next we'll have gangs fighting and drugs being sold.  So we're doing this, here, now."  
  
"You're making a -"  
  
"If you say 'big mistake', Danny, then prepare yourself for the fight of your life," Mr Barnes warned him.  "I know that's exactly what you say, just before you set out to destroy someone.  But I know you, I know your tactics, I have the law on my side, and I'm prepared to fight you down to every last penny."  
  
Dad stared at him, face to face, gaze to gaze.  And then, finally, incredibly, Dad dropped his eyes.  
  
"Fine," he grunted.  "A fucking week.  Come on, Taylor.  Let's go."  
  
I got up with him, and we left.  
  


<><>

  
"Dad -" I began, as we left the front doors and went down the steps.  
  
"Not a fucking word," he told me.  "In the car."  
  
Chastened, I got in the car.  
  
He got in the other side, then sat there, holding the steering wheel.  
  
And then he unzipped his pants.  As I watched, he pulled his cock out; it was already beginning to harden.  
  
 _What?_  I thought.   _Sex again already?_  
  
Automatically, I began pulling up my skirt; if Dad wanted to fuck in the front seat, we'd fuck in the front seat.  
  
"No, you idiot," he told me impatiently.  "Suck it."  
  
 _Ah._  
  
I should have realised; when he was really pissed at me, Dad would make me suck him off.  And it sometimes took a long time to get him to cum, especially if he was really upset.  But I was expected to keep at it.  
  
It didn't help that I didn't like the taste of his cock, or of cum in general.  But it was what Dad wanted, so ...  
  
"Take off your top," he ordered.  Of course; he wanted to squeeze my tits while I sucked him.    
  
I didn't even think about the possibility of anyone walking past and seeing me, topless, sucking my Dad's cock.  I just peeled it off and bent over Dad's erection.  
  
If anything, it tasted worse than normal.  There was sweat there, and cum, and my juices, all mixed together and gone a bit rancid.  But I sucked away, and played with his balls, while he reached under me and squeezed my breasts and pinched my nipples.  
  
And then he began to arch his back, and grunt, and his balls tightened up, and he pushed me down on his cock, and then he came, spurting his cum into the back of my throat.  
  
I coughed and gagged and swallowed and sucked, until he finally finished.  Then he let me up.  I wiped my face on my top and then put it back on.  My nipples were sore from where he had pinched and pulled them.  He never said a word, just put himself away and zipped up.  
  
"So where you want to be dropped?" he asked as I did up my seat belt.  
  
"Library," I told him.  
  
"Okay."  
  
Not another word passed between us as he drove me to the library.  
  


<><>

  
I got on the computer and logged into the parahumans forums.  Going to the Connections section, I created an anonymous account and answered Insight's post to me.  
  
"Sure, I'll meet.  When and where?"  
  
I had three thoughts about this.  If the Upsiders had a bounty on them and I managed to capture them, then that was money in the bank.  If they proved too difficult to capture, then I could call in Sellsword and earn major brownie points by turning over Insight to him.  And if the worst came to worst, I could just pretend to be a hero for a while and get out of home.  Because right now, Dad was pissed at me, and I didn't like being at home when that happened.  
  
There was only so many times I could suck Dad's cock in a day before I became sick of it, after all.  And that number was "once".  
  


<><>

  
We agreed to meet, after setting up various precautions.  It was a place I knew, not far from the Boardwalk and the Market.  
  
The Lord Street Flesh Market was open all week, but most people just rented the stalls on the weekends. It was fairly cheap, since you could get a stall for fifty to a hundred dollars on a weekday and two hundred and fifty to three hundred on weekends, depending on how busy things were. The stalls showcased ... people. There were high class escorts, mid-range call-girls and dirt cheap hookers. There were booths with a bed or two out the back so if you wanted to have a quick screw, you paid the girl, she put the "CLOSED" sign up, and you went out back and did it. If you lived in the north end of Brockton Bay and you needed some extra money, you didn’t go to the bank for a loan. You got a stall at the market and sold whatever 'assets' you figured would sell; blowjobs, handjobs, titty-fucks, your pussy, your ass, your cock, whatever. If you just wanted a strings-free fuck, it was as good as any brothel.  They turned no-one away; if a fourteen year old girl had the money to pay for a stall, then she got the stall, and whatever went on in the stall was her business and her business alone.  
  
I'd been there once before, in early January.  Dad had once told me a story - he swore it was true - about a guy who went there to have a quick fuck, and was shown into a room with a girl already bending over the bed.  They were halfway through the act when he realised it was his own daughter.  
  
"What did he do?" I'd asked him.  
  
"He finished, of course," he'd said.  "And paid her.  Then he booked her for the next five weeks solid."  He seemed to find that hilarious.  
  
Of course, he also found it arousing, so he'd pulled off my clothes and fucked me on the living room rug.  I had rug-burn on my ass for a week.  
  


<><>

  
I got off the bus and started walking.  The place we were supposed to meet wasn't far away.  On the way there, I ducked into an alley and changed into the Hive Queen costume.  Then I went the rest of the way.  
  
They met me where we were supposed to meet me, and it wasn't a trap.  Which was, I guess, a good thing.  Eventually, I decided that I had seen their faces, so they might as well see mine.  
  
They introduced themselves; Tenebrae, the perennial jokester, was called Brian.  And he was even hunkier without the costume on.  The ever-serious Insight was called Lisa.  And her co-leader, the ever-responsible Marionette was called Alec.  The redhead, K-9, was absent, so they didn't tell me her name.  
  
"Taylor," I told them briefly.  "So, where we going from here?"  
  
"We got a place," Brian told me.  "You're gonna love it."  
  


<><>

  
It was interesting, I guess.  It was in a big old factory building, up in the loft area.  There was a spiral staircase leading upstairs, and that turned out to be the coolest feature.  
  
Upstairs, there were two couches, a big-screen TV, a gaming console and other bits and pieces lying around.  Pizza boxes and soda cans abounded.  
  
I was just getting comfortable on the couch, wondering what was going to happen next, when the redhead came in the door.  
  
"Oh!" she blurted.  "Who's this?"  
  
"Oh, yeah, Rachel, meet Taylor," Brian told her with a grin.  "Remember, that Hive Queen girl we met last night?"  
  
"What ... you've invited her back already?" she asked, in a distressed tone of voice.  "But  ... we don't know anything about her."  
  
I came up off the couch fast.  "What the fuck do you  _mean_ , you don't know anything about me?" I growled.  "What's that supposed to mean, huh?  Don't you trust me?  Is that it?"  
  
I grabbed her and slammed her against the wall.  "Well, don't forget,  _Rachel_ , that I've got a name and a secret identity too.  So you don't trust me?  Fine!  I don't trust you!  In fact, I'm getting out of here!  I don't need this shit!"  
  
Grabbing my bag, I made for the stairs.  
  
"Hey ..." Brian called out weakly from the kitchen.  I ignored him.  My feet clattered down the stairs.  I had to make this look good.  
  
Heavier feet clattered behind me.  I got to the bottom, and risked a glance up.  It was Brian coming after me.  Turning away from him, I rubbed my eyes furiously, made them all red, as I headed for the door outside.  
  
"Taylor, wait!" he called out.  I slowed my pace fractionally.  
  
He caught up as I reached the outside door.  "Wait," he told me again, from right behind me.  
  
"For what?" I demanded as I swung to face him.  "For Lisa or Alec - I mean, Insight or Marionette - to decide that I'm not trustworthy too?  Well, I've seen your fucking little clubhouse, and it's nothing special.  I don't need this shit, I don't need the Upsiders, and I sure as fuck don't need ..."  
  
Suddenly, real, actual tears welled up in my eyes.  
  
 _I don't need to be kicked out of Winslow, I don't need Dad to be pissed at me._  
  
 _And I don't need Dad pulling my pants down every time he needs to get his rocks off._  
  
"Hey, hey, hey," he told me soothingly.  "It's all right."  I felt strong arms wrap around me and pull me to his chest.  I tensed, ready to push away if he groped me, but they stayed on my back.  
  
I was obscurely disappointed; I remembered the brief fantasy I'd had of him earlier that morning.  
  
He held me till the tears stopped flowing.    
  
"Fuck," I growled, pulling out a tissue and dabbing at my eyes.  "I really, really don't need this shit."  
  
"Come on back," he urged me gently.  "Rachel will come around.  Lisa already wants you in the team.  And Alec thinks you're a good solid prospect."  
  
So yeah, I went back.  Which was, of course, my plan the whole time.  Marionette nodded, Insight hugged me (which I found a little bit weird) and Rachel ... looked worried.   Then she apologised to me for making me feel bad.  
  
Step number one accomplished.  I was a member of the Upsiders.  
  
Now, what was step number two again?


	6. Heroes and Villains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we see some of the very best and worst villains that can be found in the world.

 Thomas Calvert considered his options.  
  
He knew quite well that, were the Protection Syndicate to even suspect his true capabilities and intentions, then his life would very quickly become very dangerous indeed.  Nominally, he was a paid-up member of the PRT; an assassin squad leader.  But in reality, he was much more than that.  
  
Ever since the Goblin King debacle ten years ago, he had been gradually becoming more and more disillusioned with his situation.  He'd barely escaped termination for his actions back then, and the woman they called the Pig, the head of PRT operations in Brockton Bay, still had suspicions about his dedication to the cause.  
  
A few years ago, he had finally taken the step of contacting the shadowy organisation known only as Omega.  They had checked him out, then gotten back to him.  He had agreed to pay a certain amount of money in a certain time, or to render equivalent favours in a timely fashion; they had given him a vial of foul-tasting liquid.  He had imbibed it, and ...   
  
... everything had changed.  
  


<><>

  
Famine streaked across the sky.  As he went, beams of coruscating energy slashed down at the ground, withering plants to nothing, burning the smaller ones to a crisp.  He left desolation and starvation in his wake.  
  
But even now he wasn't going all-out to cause harm.  This was just his version of idly tapping his fingers while waiting for a trip to be over.  His actual target was in a small town just up ahead.  
  
He accelerated and camouflaged his outer image with a sheath of sky-blue; to all intents and purposes, he disappeared from the sky.  Moments later, he landed in the grounds of a small college.  More hard-light imagery replaced his costume with ordinary clothes.  
  


<><>

  
The young man, studying in his dorm room, looked up at the knock.  Getting up, he answered the door.  For a moment, he was puzzled, then he realised who he was seeing.  
  
“No,” he whimpered.  “Not again ...”  
  
“Good afternoon, Arthur,” Famine greeted him.  “It's so nice to see you again.  You moved three states this time; I'm impressed.  It took me a whole day to track you down.”  He inclined his head.  “Are you going to invite me in, or am I going to have to look your parents up, your sister, and explain to them how disappointed I am in your lack of hospitality?”  
  
Arthur stepped back; Famine entered the room, closing the door behind him.  “Well now, that's better,” he murmured.  “Of course, I'm going to have to be severe with you this time.  We can't have you thinking you can try to hide from me and just get away with it.”  
  
The hard-light clothing stripped away from him, and all that was left was the naked body, the urgent erection.  “Now be a good boy and start by sucking my cock.  After that, we'll get to the real business.  I'm going to have to train you not to run off on me again.  This could take some time ...”  
  


<><>

  
Calvert had found himself with the ability to travel two paths and pick one; he wasn't sure if it was some really specific precognition, or the actual ability to create two separate universes.  To be honest, he wouldn't have been surprised either way.  
  
Making enough money to satisfy Omega had been difficult, but not overly so.  There were ways and means to make money that weren't overtly illegal, save that he was using his power to cheat.  He assuaged his conscience by telling himself that it was all for the greater good.  
  
He had to use his power some more when his construction company – built up under another name – was submitting bids to the Brockton Bay city council.  He had swiftly found out that the entire council was corrupt, from Mayor Christner on down.  Christner himself had a secret, Calvert had found after digging awhile.  He had a niece.  
  
Dinah Alcott was as mercenary as her uncle was corrupt.  Only twelve years old, she was already charging him to give predictions on which way public opinion would go on any particular topic.  As such, he was able to lead the trend, and actually stay in office with honest votes – a first for him.  
  
She was also able, apparently, to predict threats to his life; Calvert knew of two separate assassination attempts which had failed due to Dinah's power of prediction.  
  
Dinah presented a problem to him.  If he were to clean up Brockton Bay, she would be there to warn her uncle about any strategies he might attempt.  So he couldn't work against Christner directly.  Nor could he have her assassinated; apparently she could see her own death really clearly, as one projected attempt showed.  
  
So he had to set things up in such a way as to swamp her precognition.  Heroes would have to hit villains all over town at once, causing trouble in holdings where both the Syndicate and Christner had interests.  And then … he had to grab her.  
  
He didn't want to kill her, not really.  She only presented a real danger to him when coupled with the Christner political machine.  And besides, he understood that she was a regular user of several illicit substances; apparently the precognition caused headaches, so she used drugs to keep them at bay.  Getting her off these drugs, cleaning her up, would add years to her life.  
  
It was the only right thing to do.  
  


<><>

  
“Aww, c'mon, Missy,” pleaded Dean.  “Just one little kiss?  One kiss can't hurt, can it?”  
  
Missy Biron, also known as Redshift, folded her arms and leaned back in her chair.  “Nope.  Not even a kiss.  I've learned my lesson with you, Chauvinist.  I give you an inch, you'll have me bent over the table before I know what's happening.”  
  
“Yeah,” Chauvinist replied, “but you love it when I do that.”  He grinned engagingly.  “Tell me you don't.”  
  
Missy sniffed.  “Whether I do or not is none of your fucking business.  I'm thirteen.  You've got no business sticking your cock in a thirteen year old, you fucking pervert.”  
  
“But your pussy's so tight and wet when I do,” he protested.  “Fucking you is the best feeling in the world.”  
  
She glanced over her shoulder at him.  “Better than Teaser?”  
  
He rolled his eyes.  “Oh, miles better than Teaser.”  
  
She swivelled around to face him.  “So why the fuck are you still sniffing around after her?  For that matter, why are you still trying to get into Shadow Slayer's pants?  You know she's too straight-arrow for you.”  
  
He spread his hands, gave her the engaging grin again.  “Hey.  I'm a guy.  I like pussy.”  
  
She snorted.  “You like underage pussy.  Go ask Artillery if she'll spread 'em for you.  Or the Pig.”  
  
He paled.  “You're not serious.  Artillery?  She'd blow my dick off if I even suggested it.  Or Sellsword would.  You know he's fucking her, right?”  He didn't even justify her mention of the Pig with an answer.  The only thing worse than approaching her with such an offer and being rejected would be approaching her … and being accepted.  Despite being morbidly overweight, she reputedly had a massive sexual appetite, and with her position of head of the local PRT, she had no trouble finding … 'volunteers'.  Some of these, it was whispered, had never been seen again.  
  
She grinned, nodding.  “I wonder if it's true that Artillery's gotta fire off a gun just to get to orgasm.”  
  
He shrugged.  “I dunno.  But hey, what say I give you a shoulder massage.  You're too tense.”  
  
“No,” she told him.  “I know where your shoulder massages go.”  
  
“What's wrong with a little innocent shoulder massage?” he coaxed her.  
  
“Because with you it's never innocent,” she shot back.  “I'll tell you again, boobs are not part of the shoulders.”  
  
“They're in the same general area,” he wheedled.  “And you know you like how I massage them.”  
  
“You're just trying to make them get bigger,” she snorted.  
  
“Well, can it hurt?” he asked.  “Ow!  You hit me.”  
  
“And I'll hit you again too,” she told him warningly.  “You just said I got small tits.”  
  
“Well, so did you,” he retorted.  
  
“That's different,” she claimed.  “I'm allowed to say it.”  
  
“Okay then, tell you what,” he tried again.  “I'll give you a shoulder and back massage.  No boobs.”  
  
“Just shoulder and back?”  
  
“Just shoulder and back.  Promise.”  
  
She shook her head.  “Promise, my ass.  I know about your promises.”  
  
“So, yeah?”  
  
She sighed.  “Yeah, okay.”  
  
“Okay, take off your top.”  
  
“The fuck?”  
  
“Take off your top.  It feels better that way.”  
  
“You pervert!  You _knew_  I haven't got a bra on.”  
  
“No, I didn't,” he protested untruthfully.  
  
She frowned at him, then finally peeled her t-shirt off, keeping her back to him.  
  
“Okay, massage away,” she told him.  
  
She sat forward in the chair, leaning on the table with her elbows as he began to massage her back.  He was good at it, she had to admit.  His hands were strong and gentle, and he knew exactly where to press to make it feel good.  
  
She leaned her head on her arms.  This was feeling really nice …  
  
She felt his hand enfold her small breasts.  
  
“Hey!” she objected, sitting up.  “I said, no boobs!”  
  
“Relax,” he told her soothingly, his hands continuing to massage, squeeze gently, rub her nipples.  Small sparks of pleasure shot through her as his talented hands continued to hit all her buttons.  “It's just a massage, right?  They're just another part of your body.  And doesn't this feel nice?”  
  
She had to admit, he was really, really good at this.  “Yeah,” she allowed grudgingly, “but nothing more than this, okay?”  
  
“Sure, sure,” he told her, gently squeezing, massaging, moving his hands off her breasts, then back on again.  Slowly, she relaxed again.  It was feeling really nice; she felt the familiar warm feeling in the pit of her stomach.  
  
And then his lips touched the back of her neck.  
  
“Nnngh,” she murmured.  “Nothing more.”  But she didn't move, didn't stop him.  
  
His hands were squeezing her breasts harder now, pinching her erect nipples, pulling on them.  She was panting, pulling against his hands, enjoying the pressure, enjoying the little stabs of pain, enjoying what he was doing to her.  
  
One of his hands left her breast, began migrating down over her stomach.  She knew where it was heading, didn't have the will to resist.  His lips on her neck were now nibbling, sucking.  He was nipping at the side of her neck.  She turned her head, almost without willing it, and her lips met his.  She kissed him; he kissed her.  She felt his hand undo the catch to her skirt.    
  
“Nnnn,” she murmured through the kiss, even as she turned, put her arms around him.  Kissed him.  Felt her skirt fall away.  Spread her legs as she felt his hand slide into her panties.  
  
She was already wet; his finger slid into her easily.  She arched her back and groaned, kept kissing him as she undid his pants with shaking fingers.  He slid another finger into her slippery tight wetness, and she opened her thighs more, letting him fuck her pussy with his fingers.  
  
He lowered his mouth to her breasts, sucking her nipples into his mouth, hard enough to make her gasp, biting them hard enough to leave marks.  And all the while his hand caressed her soft wet pussy, his fingers slid in and out of her.  
  
She pulled his pants down, cradled his thick erection.  He pushed her down gently; she went to her knees, took him in her mouth.  Slowly, sensuously, erotically, she began to suck him off.  He held the back of her head and grinned as his shaft disappeared between her lips.  
  
“Oh yeah, you're such a hot little cocksucker,” he groaned.  
  
Dennis entered the room, took in what was going on.  Missy's back was to him, her eyes closed.  Dean grinned, pointed at Missy's protruding ass.  As she sucked on him, he ran his hands down her back, slowly slid her panties off of her ass.  She reached back, pulled them down.  
  
Dennis grinned wickedly and undid his belt, pulling his jeans down.  His own penis was rapidly becoming erect; he spat quietly in his hand, rubbed it over the head of his erection to lubricate it.  
  
Missy was industriously sucking on Dean's cock when she suddenly felt the pressure against her hot wet pussy entrance.  Hands took hold of her hips, and a cock started to slide into her.  
  
“Mmm!” she protested.  “Mmmph!”  She tried to struggle, tried to pull away from Dean's erection, but he held her there, forced her to keep sucking.  
  
The cock pushed into her, slid all the way up inside her.  She groaned at the sensation, even as she protested at it happening against her will.  Whoever was behind her started fucking her, with quick, impatient strokes.  
  
She kept sucking Chauvinist's cock; it wasn't like she had a choice.  Dennis fucked her from behind, stroking into her hard and fast, jolting her forward on to Dean's cock.  Dean groaned from the sensations; he felt his orgasm coming on hard.  
  
When he came, he held her head, forced her to swallow it all; she choked and sputtered, and he could swear some of it came out her nose, but she took it all.  In the meantime, Dennis was reaching the vinegar strokes, and came inside her, just as she got her mouth off of Dean's cock and looked around to see who was behind her.  
  
“Oh god,” he groaned.  “Oh yeah, oh fuck yeah, you got the tightest pussy, Missy … oh god yeaaaaaaahhhhhhh....”  
  
His hands on her hips pulled her back on to him hard, over and over again, and Missy nearly came, but didn't quite make it.  She felt his semen spurt into her, over and over again, but she was engaged in swallowing the remainder of Dean's cum.  
  
“What the fuck?” she demanded.  “Seriously, what the fuck?  Did I say you could stick it in me?  Did I say you could fuck me?”  
  
Dennis pulled out of her and grinned unapologetically.  “Hey, Dean said go ahead.  I figured you were good with it.  And besides, I couldn't ask you for permission; you had your mouth full at the time.”  
  
Both he and Dean started laughing at the joke.  Missy, kneeling in front of Dean with cum on her chin and more dribbling down her thighs, wasn't so amused.  She exerted her power; Dennis suddenly found himself pressed into the corner.  And then the ceiling started coming down, and the floor started coming up, exerting unpleasantly strong pressure on him.  
  
“Hey, hey, what the fuck?” he sputtered.  “Hey, this isn't funny!”  
  
“Looks that way to me,” Missy told him flatly.  “You want to apologise for that?”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry,” he blurted.  “I shoulda asked.”  
  
She considered that.  “No, I don't think you're sorry enough,” she told him.  Getting up on the chair and kicking the panties off, she spread her legs.  “Come eat me out till I tell you to stop.”  
  
“Sure, sure, I can do that,” he agreed immediately.  Space unwarped, and he was standing in front of her.    
  
Going to his knees, he began to do as he was told.  His tongue slid between her labia, tickled her clitoris, delved into her tight young vaginal canal, and in general went to work pleasuring her.  
  
“Oh yeah,” she grunted, arching her back and spreading her thighs wider.  “This is more like it.  Oh god yeah … oh god, oh god I'm cummi-”  
  
Dennis lifted his face from her crotch and grinned at Dean.  
  
“Holy shit,” Dean exclaimed.  “You froze her?”  
  
Dennis, also known as Stopwatch, nodded.  “Got the camera?”  
  
Dean burst out laughing.  “Fuck yeah.  What do you think?  Underage villains gone wild dot com?”  
  
Dennis indicated Missy's spreadeagled body, caught in the middle of orgasm.  “She's a natural, right?”  
  
They shared a high-five.   
  
As they began to take the pictures, Dean observed contemplatively, “You do know she's gonna kill us when she finds out.”  
  
Dennis shrugged.  “Eh.  It'll be worth it.”  
  
“True dat.”  
  


<><>

  
“Heads up,” Lisa told us.  “The boss has a mission for us.”  
  
“So who's this mysterious boss of ours, anyway?” I demanded.  “I'm not sure I like the idea of just taking orders out of the blue.  Shit, for all we know, he might be one of the Horsemen.  Setting us up for a fall.”  
  
“Hey, hey, chill, chill,” Brian told me.  “He hasn't led us wrong yet.  Every bust we've made has been righteous as hell.”  
  
“Even Lung?” asked Rachel nervously.  “I hear Shebang's pissed at us for that.”  
  
“Hey,  _he_  came after  _us,”_  Brian reminded her.  He turned back to me.  “The boss is cool.  He keeps on the down-low so no-one can trace us through him, or vice versa.  If the local villains found out how good he was at pointing us at busts, they'd be on him like flies on shit.”  
  
I sighed.  “Fine.  But I really don't like being kept in the dark.  What's this all-important mission?”  
  
Lisa's voice was serious and deadpan. “There's a drug and money clearing house.  We're to hit it, destroy the drugs, take as much of the money as we can carry.  Make a really big noise doing it.”  
  
“Woo hoo!” whooped Brian.  
  
Rachel blinked.  “What … we get to keep the money?”  
  
Lisa nodded.  “Yes.  We have expenses; we may as well let the villains pay for them.”  She turned to me.  “Are you okay with this?”  
  
Free money?  Shit yeah, I was okay with that.  After Sellsword's little scam on me, I didn't give a shit where the money came from.  
  
“Sure,” I told her, feigning reluctance.  “I guess.”  
  
“Is this really okay, Alec?” asked Rachel.  “I mean, stealing … and maybe hurting people?”  
  
“Dad always stressed responsibility for others,” Alec told us seriously.  “I'm sure we can do this without hurting innocents.  Or even not so innocents.”  
  
“Who's your dad, anyway?” I asked him.  
  
“He's a Canadian hero called Heart-Throb,” he explained.  “He's able to manipulate emotions.  Make bank robbers feel guilty and give up, that sort of thing.”  
  
“Sounds like you could do a lot with a power like that,” I commented.  
  
“Yeah, which is why he's always really careful with it,” he replied earnestly.  “He's taught me to be just as careful with my power.”  
  
“Cool,” I answered, while thinking that Heart-Throb had to be an idiot for not making more of his power.  I saw Insight give me a sharp look, and I suppressed that thought.  I didn't want to be caught out this early in the game.  
  
"I think you've still got reservations, Hive Queen," Lisa remarked.  
  
I began to reply in the negative, then Brian spoke up.  "Let's go for a walk, and we'll talk it out, okay?"  
  
"Okay," I agreed.   _It might give me a chance to sound him out._  
  


<><>

  
Arthur slumped, sobbing, over the bed.  Famine stood beside him, then leaned down and kissed him.  Arthur tried to flinch back, but Famine held him firm.  
  
“I will be back,” murmured Famine.  “And you will give me a more welcome greeting next time, won't you?”  
  
Arthur rolled to the side of the bed and threw up, weakly. Famine desiccated the vomitus almost before it hit the floor.  “See?” he told the young man lightly.  “I even help you out.  Now, are you going to be welcoming next time?”  
  
Arthur moaned something that might have been 'yes'; Famine took it as such.  
  
“Good,” he told the teenager approvingly.  “I do hate scenes.”  
  
There was a flash of light, and he was gone.  
  
Arthur threw up again.  
  


<><>

  
Brian and I strolled out of the factory, side by side.  
  
“You don't like the idea of robbing criminals?” he asked me.  
  
“Oh, I got no problem with that,” I answered honestly.  “They take from people, right?  Only right to take from them.  How much is it, anyway?”  
  
“Lisa says anywhere between fifty to a hundred thou,” he replied soberly.  
  
“Holy shit,” I blurted.  “So we get ten to twenty thou each?  Well, not counting the boss's cut, right?”  
  
He shook his head.  “Boss doesn't take cuts.  Heroes, remember?”  
  
I nodded.  “Yeah, yeah, gotcha.”  
  
“So where's your problem?  That the boss doesn't tell us who he is?”  
  
“Yeah,” I replied.   _Because if I can hand the whole kit and kaboodle to the Syndicate, I'll get a shitload of bounty._  
  
“Hey,” he told me lightly.  “It's a thing.  Just consider it a secret identity taken a little farther than normal.”  
  
“Yeah, I guess,” I replied.  
  
“Hey, can I say something?” he asked me softly.  
  
“Sure, what?” I asked distractedly.  
  
“I just want to say … I think you're kind of sexy.”  
  
I blinked at him.  “Seriously?”  
  
He nodded.  “Oh shit yes.  Back when I was holding you, I wanted to kiss you.”  
  
“And feel my ass?” I added dryly.  
  
He ducked his head.  “Well, that too.”  
  
I looked around; there was an alley nearby.  “Come on then.”  
  
We ducked into the alleyway.  My bugs told me it was clear.  “If you want to kiss me, kiss me.  Go ahead and get it over with.”  
  
He looked like he couldn't believe his luck.  “And feel your ass?”  
  
I shrugged.  “Sure.”  
  
So he took me in his arms and kissed me.  It wasn't like Dad; there was no stubble, no beer on his breath, and he knew how to kiss.  I enjoyed this kiss.  And his hands on my ass … well, he discovered that I didn't protest when he pulled my skirt up, and pretty soon he was getting really, really personal.  
  
Pressed up against him as I was, I felt his cock beginning to harden.  If I pulled back now, he might get pissed off, start turning against me.  A mental shrug.  It wasn't anything I hadn't done before.  
  
I pulled back slightly from the kiss.  “Brian ...”  
  
“What, you want me to stop?”  
  
I shook my head, reached under my skirt, and pulled my panties down.  Then I turned away from him and leaned up against a dumpster.  
  
It didn't take him long to catch on.  I heard his belt unbuckle and his pants come down.  And then my skirt was bunched around my waist and he was pressing into me.  
  
It was fairly uncomfortable at first, because I started out dry, but I got real wet, real fast.  His cock was bigger than Dad's, and the way he used it … it went from uncomfortable to okay to nice to oh my fucking god!  
  
I leaned against the dumpster, grunting as he thrust into me, pushing back as hard as I could against him.  His cock drilled into my wet pussy over and over again, filling me up in a way I'd never felt before, driving me to heights of pleasure I'd only felt every now and again.  
  
When I came, it was an utter and total surprise; my knees gave way, and I ended up on all fours.  Brian kept a grip on me, and kept fucking me doggy-style, ramming himself into me harder and harder.  I couldn't believe how good this was.  All the times Dad had fucked me, all the sort-of okay sensations, were nothing next to what Brian was doing to me.  
  
When he finally emptied out into me, I felt like I was being filled from a gallon jug of cum.  His cock pulsed and spurted and filled me up; I could feel the heavy warmth, deep inside me.  
  
He slowly pulled out of me.  I stood up, just as slowly, and pulled my panties up.  
  
“Wow, fuck,” he observed as he stood up, putting himself away.  
  
“Shitfire,” I agreed.  “That was  _awesome.”_  
  
I kissed him again; he responded.  
  
“We're gonna have to do that again,” I told him, and I meant it.  
  
“Hell yes,” he agreed.  
  
All of a sudden, I wasn't so much in a hurry to turn in the Upsiders.  
  
I would, of course, in the end, but not before I'd had a bit more of Brian.  
  
“We should be getting back,” he ventured.  
  
I nodded.  At least we'd gotten that sorted out.  
  
In silence, we walked back to the loft.  
  
Tomorrow, we would rob the criminals.


	7. Interlude: Ellisburg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jamie Rinke, aka the Goblin King, surveys his realm ...

Jamie Rinke sat in a chair and enjoyed the sun.  
  
It was a good day to be king of his own little domain.  
  
Ten years ago, his powers had first started emerging; he had begun spawning creatures from his own body.  While at first the populace was alarmed and even hostile, he had quickly soothed them.  His creatures were well-intentioned, and bore no-one any malice.  Moreover, they were fast and strong, and were willing and able to take over the job of keeping the peace.  Alongside properly sworn-in officers of the law, of course.  
  
The trouble began when his creatures started uncovering evidence of organised crime inside Ellisburg.  He had decided that this was not to be borne, and set out to eradicate the stain of wrongdoing from the face of the city.  
  
Oh, the little crimes remained, for people to perpetrate and be caught by the police for, but the big crimes, the hidden ones, he would clean up.  He would expunge them from the city, once and for all.  
  
The PRT fought back, of course, with backing from the Syndicate.  But his creatures were too fast, too strong, too multitudinous.  They were driven back, and had never been able to enter Ellisburg again.  
  
And today, the city thrived.  It was the cleanest metropolis in the United States; some of his creatures were dedicated street-cleaners.  It was the most honest; all anyone had to do was come to him with a complaint, and his creatures would sniff out the truth.  And it was the most law-abiding; if a crime was committed, his creatures would track down the perpetrators and bring them in for sentencing and punishment, all agreed on by the people of Ellisburg.  
  
The most strenuous of these was exile from Ellisburg itself.  So many people tried to move to the city that some called the Goblin Kingdom that he had to turn away dozens every month.  But they had a point, he had to admit; everyone was fed, clothed and housed, here.  A ten year old child could walk from one side of the city to the other, holding a hundred-dollar note in her hand, and not one person would bother her, save to ask her if she needed assistance to get home.  
  
He put his hand on Polka's, as she sat beside him.  She smiled at him.  
  
"It's a good day to be alive, isn't it, love?" he asked.  
  
"It is, indeed, my king," she replied.  "It is indeed."


	8. Interlude: Emma, Taylor and Sophia (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we see a little of what went on behind the scenes to form the relationships between Emma Barnes, Taylor Hebert and Sophia Hess.

Emma and Sophia lay naked on her bed, both of them lightly sheened with sweat from their exertions.  
  
"So why did they make you change your name?" asked Emma.    
  
Sophia snorted.  "They said it wasn't badass enough."  
  
"Yeah?  That's stupid.  I liked Shadow Stalker as a name."  
  
"You and me both," Sophia told her.  "Shadow Slayer?  That's not 'badass'.  That's 'pending murder charge'."  She reached up and gently caressed Emma's cheek with the back of her hand.  
  
"Yeah," agreed Emma; she gently captured Sophia's hand and kissed the fingertips one by one.  "It's like they're trying to advertise the fact that they made you start carrying sharp arrows, instead of those blunt ones you were using."  
  
Sophia grimaced.  "You ask me?  I think they're trying to toughen me up, make me fit into their idea of how the Syndicate should go.". She shook her head.  "And I don't think I do.  I really don't.  I mean, when I got into this gig, I was all about the 'ethical villain' concept.  We needed extra money, being a hero just doesn't pay, so I started stealing.  Not enough to hurt anyone.  Just enough to let us get by, basically.  And when we didn't need money, I didn't steal."  
  
"Remember when we first met?" asked Emma.  She ran her hand up Sophia's naked body, to the nape of her neck.  Pulling the dark-skinned girl to her, she kissed those warm, welcoming lips, duelled sensuously with her tongue.  Slowly, teasingly, she began to kiss and lick her way down Sophia's body.  Sophia moaned softly as Emma licked the sweat from her nipples, then sucked and nibbled them to hardness once more.  
  
Down to her stomach, farther down, until she reached the juncture of Sophia's thighs, spread wide in welcome.  At first, she merely tasted Sophia's musky effusions, causing her willing victim to writhe and moan in delicious agony.  And then she began to delve deeper, to lap and lick at her swollen clitoris, to taste her flowing juices.  Sophia's back was arched in utter ecstasy, the only sounds from her throat a series of strangled whimpers.  
  
Although she couldn't talk, or even think straight, she certainly recalled how they first met.  
  


<><>

  
**August, 2009**  
  
"But, Dad, I don't know  _what_  I want to do," Emma told her father, and pouted.  "Taylor says they all suck donkey balls, anyway."  
  
Alan Barnes frowned.  "I'm not sure I like the way things are going between you and Taylor, Emma.  Since Anne-Rose left Danny, she's been getting more and more like him and less and less like her mother.  I'm not sure I like the sort of person she's turning into."  
  
"Seriously, Dad?" asked Emma.  "Taylor's all kinds of cool.  Her Dad knows everyone who's anyone.  I mean, no-one messes with him.”  
  
“I am fully aware of what type of man Danny Hebert is, Emma,” Alan told his daughter seriously.  “I have worked with the man for quite a few years.  But while he has been an adequate business partner, he is not the sort of man I would want as a role model for my daughter.”  
  
“Dad, I think you're being totally unfair on him,” Emma began, just as her phone rang.  “Oh, hey, it's Taylor.”  
  
Immediately abandoning the conversation with her father, she answered the phone.  “Hey, Taylor.  What's up?”  
  
Even as she spoke, she could hear the low, sweet jazz music almost overlaying the conversations in the background.  
  


<><>

  
“Yo, bitch,” replied Taylor.  “How're they hanging?”  She lifted the glass she had in her hand, and took another cautious sip.  It burned all the way down, but she schooled herself not to flinch.  The men around the table nodded approvingly; cigarette smoke hung heavy in the air.  She thought it might be cool to borrow one for a puff, see what it was like, but her Dad didn't smoke, so she figured he might not be okay with it.  But there he was, knocking back the bourbon with his buddies, and so he'd nodded when she'd asked if she could have a glass as well.  
  
 _“Uh … okay?”_  replied Emma uncertainly.   _“Where are you?”_  
  
“Oh, out with my dad,” Taylor replied off-handedly.  She took another hit of the bourbon; it was a bit more than she'd had before, and she thought her eyeballs were about to catch fire.  “Kickin' back, shootin' the shit with the boys.  You?”  
  
 _“I'm with my Dad too,”_  Emma told her.   _“We're driving through town.  Oh.”_  
  
“'Oh', what, Ems?” asked Taylor, knocking back some more of the bourbon.  It still burned, but she was starting to get used to it.  “Not one of those fucking windscreen washer dudes?  Get your dad to run him the fuck over.”  The idea sounded hilarious to her, and she giggled.  
  
 _“No … no.  It's some sort of street festival,”_  Emma replied.   _“There's stuff in the way.  We're stopping.”_  
  
“You've gotta be fucking kidding me,” Taylor laughed.  “Tell your dad to put his foot down, run those hippie freaks over.  Here, give him the phone, I'll tell him myself.”  
  


<><>

  
“No … no,” Emma told her nervously.  “Dad's gotten out to talk to them.  He wants them to move out of the way.”  
  
 _“Good fucking luck with that,”_  Taylor responded coarsely.   _“So, what you been doing?  Been keeping the bitches down while I been out of town?”_  
  
Emma was reminded abruptly of the girls that Taylor had been in the habit of casually bullying in the last six months of school; she had gone along with it, even participated a few times, but since Taylor had gone on that trip with her Dad over the summer break, she hadn't even thought of it.  
  
“Ah – not really,” she admitted.  “I've just been waiting for you to get back, so we could catch up.”  
  
 _“Yeah, I can't wait to get back too,”_  Taylor agreed.   _“I mean, this trip's a blast, an' I'm learnin' all sorts of things, but I can't wait to get back to school and kick asses till they know who's boss.”_  
  
“Uh, yeah,” Emma replied.  “I -”  
  
She became aware of someone tapping on the window.  “Oh, uh, I'll call you back.”  
  
 _“Catch you on the flip side, bitch.”_  
  
“Same to you, uh, bitch.”  
  
She hung up, and turned to see who wanted her.  
  
It was a dark-skinned girl about her age, with beads woven into her hair, and a wide, guileless smile; she made motions to wind down the window.  
  
Emma shrugged and wound down the window.  
  
“Hi,” the girl greeted her immediately.  “I'm Sophia.  You look bored stuck in that car.  Want to come walk around the show with me?”  
  
“Oh, hi,” Emma replied.  “Emma Barnes.  Um, I dunno.  I think we might be leaving real soon.”  
  
She got out of the car and saw her father a few yards away, arguing with a man almost as large and red-faced as he was.  
  
As she got closer, she caught the words, almost drowned out by the festivities around them.  
  
“ - don't care what sort of a permit you've got.  I want you to move your things out of the way, and clear the road, so that we can get home!”  
  
“I'm sorry, sir,” the red-faced man told him.  “Unless you're a city council official, you can't revoke our permits, and this festival is going to go on.  It's an Asian Benevolent fundraiser.  We can maybe open up the street behind you, so you can get out that way ...”  
  
“That's no good,” ground out Alan Barnes.  “We'd have to backtrack and go well out of our way.  How long are you going to be here?”  
  
“Another four hours at least,” the man stated, looking at his watch.  “Look, why don't you just walk around, see the sights, enjoy the festival.  Here, have a book of vouchers.  Free rides, cotton candy, snacks.  To make up for the inconvenience.”  
  
Alan Barnes took the vouchers, and looked around at the ongoing festival.  There were clowns, fire jugglers, stilt-walkers, a small merry-go-round, and many other things happening.  Music was playing here and there, some live and some recorded.  
  
“Can we, Dad?” asked Emma.  “Can we walk around?”  
  
He took a deep breath, inhaling scents that had been long forgotten, and when he let it out, some of the tension was gone from his shoulders.  “Sure thing, Emma,” he told her.  “Want to walk around with me, or are you good on your own?”  
  
“Oh, uh, this girl Sophia says she can show me around,” Emma stammered.  “Sophia, this is my dad.  Dad, this is Sophia.”  
  
Sophia smiled and held out her hand.  “Sophia Hess.  I'm very pleased to meet you, sir.”  
  
Emma's father smiled and shook the proffered hand.  “Alan Barnes.  Likewise.”  He tore the book of vouchers in two, and gave Emma half.  “If you need me, call.  Don't leave the festival.”  
  
Emma took the vouchers.  “Okay, Dad, and thanks.”  
  
Sophia grinned and turned to Emma.  “Want to get your hair beaded?  It's a blast.”  
  
Emma studied the beads in Sophia's hair.  It did look kind of cool.  “Okay, sure.”  
  
Sophia grabbed her hand and dragged her off toward a stall, talking nineteen to the dozen.  Alan watched them go.  _Now there's someone who would be good for her,_  he thought.  
  


<><>

  
_“Same to you, uh, bitch.”_  
  
Taylor barely heard the words as she shut the phone down and put it away.  She drained the last of the bourbon in her glass, and tapped it on the table, as she had seen the men do.  A waiter materialised, gave an almost imperceptible glance to where her father sat nearby.  He nodded impatiently, then went back to his wheeling and dealing.  The waiter poured a healthy shot of bourbon into her glass.  
  
“Hey,” she blurted, as he was about to leave.  “Can I get a cigarette?”  
  
“Certainly, ma'am.”  The waiter obviously decided that, as she was being permitted to drink, then a smoke was not exactly pushing the boundaries.  He produced a pack from an inner pocket, and laid it, along with a plastic lighter, on the table alongside the glass.  “Compliments of the house, ma'am,” he stated smoothly.  
  
She opened it, pulled out one, put it in her mouth, and picked up the lighter.  Thousands of hours of watching old movies came to her assistance, and she managed to get it lit on the first try.  Then she inhaled the smoke, and nearly coughed her lungs out.  
  
There was a general snickering around the table; Danny looked around, saw her with the cigarette in her hand, shrugged, and went back to what he was doing.  Taylor steeled herself, took a drink of bourbon, then took another draw on the cigarette.  
  
The alcohol burned all the way down, but it seemed to cushion the acrid taste of the cigarette smoke; at the very least, she didn't start coughing again.  She didn't like the taste, not particularly, but she could stand it.  And sitting there, with a glass of bourbon in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, she could tell herself she was among equals, that she was just as good as any man there.  
  
Finally, she was a part of her father's world.  Finally, she might gain his respect.  
  


<><>

  
The alcohol burned just as much coming up as it did going down, and it tasted a hell of a lot worse.  Taylor hunched over the hotel toilet, heaving and gagging, as miserable as she had ever been.  The bourbon she had drunk came up, as did the food she had eaten earlier.  And she still felt dizzy and light-headed.  
  
She got up, staggered two steps to the wash-basin, and flushed her mouth out, then brushed her teeth.  
  
“God, that stuff tastes fucking horrible,” she said out loud.  
  
Her father's chuckle answered her from the other room, where he was watching TV.  “Typical newbie mistake.  You had too much, too quickly.  You need to ease into it.”  
  
“You could have warned me,” she retorted, stung.  
  
“Are you gonna make that mistake again?”  
  
“Fuck, no.”  
  
“Well, then.”  
  
“I still think it's a mean trick.”  
  
“Well, you can mean trick your way into the shower.  Your hair stinks of smoke, just like your clothes do.”  
  
“I can't smell it.”  
  
“Trust me,” he told her heavily.  “Your nose is all desensitised.  You were literally breathing the stuff into your lungs all fucking night.”  
  
“Oh.  Okay.”  
  
“Just so you know, if you pick up the habit, you pay for the smokes.  Not me.”  
  
“Not fucking likely, Dad,” she called through the door as she stripped off.  “They taste even worse than the fucking bourbon.”  
  
His laughter followed her into the shower.  
  
She didn't spend long; shampooed her hair, scrubbed her body, washed her armpits, then got out again.  Hotel towels were huge and fluffy, she discovered, and she could wrap one around her about four times.  There were also bathrobes; she put one on over her underwear, and wrapped a towel around her wet hair.  
  


<><>

  
When she came out, he was reclining in the half-lounge, wearing the other bathrobe, watching TV.  He held a tumbler in his hand, with half an inch of amber liquid in the bottom.  As she emerged, he raised it in her direction.  “Nightcap?”  
  
She wrinkled her nose.  “No thanks.  I don't think drinking's my thing.”  
  
He chuckled warmly.  “Well, you learned your lesson a sight faster than most, I'll give you that.”  
  
She sat down beside him and nodded at the TV.  “What's on?”  
  
He shrugged.  “Fuck knows.  I just turned it on for the noise.”  He raised the glass.  “I need to wind down, you know?  Dealing with assholes all night.”  
  
“Yeah, well, I enjoyed myself.  Apart from the throwing up part, that is.”  
  
“Well, at least you waited till you got back here.  Joe Tremaine, he runs the show in Chicago, stopped me on the way out.  Congratulated me on having a kid who can hold her booze and smoke without coughing her guts up.”  He put a hand on her knee and squeezed.  “That's good.  You made me look good tonight.”  
  
She felt warm all over at the rare praise.  “Well, I did cough a bit, at first,” she confessed.    
  
His hand hadn't moved from her knee; as he turned toward her, it seemed to move up her thigh.  
  
“That doesn't matter,” he told her seriously.  “Everyone coughs, the first time.  But you smoked the rest of that one, and three more.  I watched you.  You were even blowing smoke rings, at the end.”  
  
She was light-headed from the residual effect of the alcohol, and his praise made her blush.  When his hand moved even farther up her thigh, she didn't notice.  Nor did she notice when the tugging of his hand on her robe began to pull it apart.  
  
“Thanks, Dad, I … I don't know what to say,” she stammered.  
  
He leaned toward her.  “It means you're a true Hebert.  It means you're ready to kick ass and do whatever's necessary to get where you're going.  It means you're not a little girl any more.”  
  
At the latest motion of his hand, squeezing her thigh, her robe fell open a little way.  
  
She giggled, feeling the drink.  “I'm still a little girl in a lot of ways, Dad.  I mean, look at these.”  
  
The robe was already partly open; she didn't remember leaving it open this far, but what the hell.  She pulled it all the way open and showed him her breasts, barely making use of the training bra she was wearing.  Opening the robe also showed her skinny hips, and her panties.  “See?”  
  
He looked her up and down appraisingly.  “Well, I dunno,” he told her.  “You're tall.  Get up and show me how tall you are.”  
  
Shedding the robe, she stood up and posed in her underwear.  “Yeah, I'm tall, but I'm all skin and bone.”  
  
“So am I, Taylor,” he reminded her, opening his own robe to show his gangly frame, wearing boxers and nothing else.  She didn't notice the swelling that was starting to become evident in the front of said boxers, but then, she was more than a little drunk.  
  
“You really think I'm more than a girl, Dad?” she asked, dropping on to the lounge beside him.  
  
“Sure,” he told her, reaching out to cup her breast.  She started a little at this, but he was so casual about it that she wasn't overly alarmed.  His hand was warm on her bra-clad flesh, and as he squeezed it, she shifted slightly.  
  
“How'd that feel?” he asked her.  
  
“Oh, uh, it felt nice, Dad,” she replied, feeling slightly confused.  
  
“Sign you're getting to be a woman,” he replied confidently, squeezing her other breast.  “Some women just got bigger tits than others, is all.”  
  
“Really?” she asked.  
  
He nodded.  “Get 'em out, let me see them.”  
  
Obediently, she reached back and undid the clasp.  The bra came off, and she dropped it on the floor.  He studied her small breasts, then reached out and gently rubbed her nipple, starting to harden in the cool air.  
  
“Ooh, that feels funny,” she responded with a shiver.  
  
He grinned.  “You think that feels funny, try this on for size.”  Leaning forward, to her astonishment, he applied his lips to her nipple, sucking it into his mouth, then (she guessed) flicking it with his tongue.  
  
“Oh!” she gasped.  “Oh!  Oh god!”  Tingles shot all over her body, from where her father had her nipple in his mouth.  Most of them converged in the pit of her stomach, where a strange warmth was building.  
  
“Yup,” he reiterated.  “You're definitely not a kid any more.  Actually, one more thing we can check.”  
  
“What's that?” she asked, dazed by the sensations that he had just awakened in her.  
  
“See how much pubic hair you got.”  
  
“Pubic hair?” she repeated, uncomprehending for a moment.  
  
“Hair on your pussy,” he explained.  “Get your panties off.  Let's have a look.”  
  
At that moment, in that state, it seemed perfectly logical and rational for her to take her panties off, and so she did.  A moment later, she sat on the lounge, totally naked.  
  
At first, she kept her legs together, but he gestured and she opened them.  
  
“Well, there's not much there,” he observed after a few moments of close inspection.  
  
“'Not much'?” repeated Taylor, conducting her own upside down drunken inspection of her groin regions.  “There's nothing.  I'm bald down there.”  
  
“Yeah,” he breathed.  “Yeah, you are.”  
  
“So how much do you have, Dad?” she asked, gesturing at where his boxers still covered his nether regions.  
  
“I thought you'd never ask,” he responded, and a moment later, he was as naked as his daughter.  
  
Taylor caught sight of the long erection, jutting up proudly from a thick bush of pubic hair.  Her first thought, as drunk as she was, went:  _Darn.  He's got lots more than me._   Her second thought was a little more coherent, and went,  _Wow, that thing's huge._  
  
“Holy shit, Dad,” she mumbled.  “You've got a big cock.”  
  
“And you've got a cute little pussy,” he responded.  
  
“Yeah, but with no hair on it,” she groused.  
  
“Ah, but that's not the be all and end all,” he pointed out.  “There's still one more thing we can do.”  
  
“What's that?” she asked.  
  
“Up on the bed,” he told her.  “Lie on your back and spread your legs.  I'll show you.”  
  
Obediently, she climbed on to the bed and lay back with her legs spread.  He got up beside her, and put his hand between her legs.  
  
“What are you doing, Dad?” she asked nervously.    
  
“Just checking on something.  Hold still.”  
  
She held still, and felt him rubbing gently at her tender nether lips.  Suddenly, a sharp thrill of pleasure shot through her.  
  
“Wow,” she groaned.  “What's that?”  
  
“That's proving you're not a little girl,” he explained.  He kept rubbing, and it kept feeling good.  And then she felt something spreading, opening, pushing into her.  
  
“Dad!” she gasped.  
  
“It's all right, Taylor,” he murmured soothingly.  “I know what I'm doing.”  
  
Reassured by that, she lay back and let it happen; the pleasurable sensations went on for a little bit.  And then they stopped.  Opening her eyes, she saw him climbing on top of her.  And then something else pushed at her tender virgin opening.  
  
“Are you ready for me to prove you're not a little girl?” he asked, and kissed her.  Not a daddy-kiss to the cheek or the forehead, but a proper kiss, to the lips.  
  
It brought a thrill to her chest, and she kissed him back.  
  
“What are you gonna do, Dad?” she whispered, but she already knew.  
  
And then it was too late, as he he pushed himself inside her.  
  
She moaned with the pain of the unaccustomed stretching, but he kept kissing her and murmuring reassurance, and then he penetrated a bit deeper, and it became less uncomfortable, and just a little bit pleasurable, and then he started thrusting into her, and finally it burst on her through the drunken haze.  
  
 _Fuck, Dad's having sex with me!_  
  
Raising her head, she looked down the length of her body, and sure enough, the length of his cock was sliding in and out of her, pushing deep into her tight pussy, over and over again.  Above her, he grunted as he thrust, and she bit her lip to avoid crying out at the pain she felt when he thrust too deeply.  Because some part of her wanted to prove that she really was grown up, to prove to her Dad that she was old enough for him to respect.  
  
And so she lay there, and let him kiss her, and felt his cock thrusting deeply inside her.  It hurt at first, but once she had stretched to accommodate him, there was less pain and more a general discomfort.  She began to move, to respond, to say his name, to make him think she was enjoying it.  He thrust faster, pushed deeper, kissed her harder.    
  
And then he grunted loudly, thrust even more deeply than before, and she felt his cock pulsing inside her, the rigid shaft spurting wad after wad of cum deep into her freshly-deflowered pussy.  
  
After, he pulled out of her, and rolled off to one side.  
  
She expected him to speak to her, to offer congratulations that she was, once and for all, not a little girl.  But he had rolled with his back to her, and she heard snores arising.  
  
She lay there for a little while, staring at the ceiling, thinking things through in the slow way that drunk people have.  
  
 _Dad just fucked me.  He took my cherry and came inside me.  
  
I thought it was supposed to feel better than that.  
  
Maybe it feels better the second time around.  
  
So that's what sex is like.  
  
He's probably going to want to do it again.  
  
Oh well, we'll do it again then.  I can handle it.  And I might even enjoy it._  
  
Getting up, she went to the bathroom and examined herself.  White semen was oozing out of her, with a tinge of red in it.   _Popped my cherry, all right._  
  
She wiped herself down, retrieved her panties, and climbed back into bed with her father.  There didn't seem to be any point in sleeping on the other bed, now.  Or in putting on more clothes than necessary for hygiene.  
  
She pulled the covers over both of them before lying down to sleep.  
  
It took her a long time to drop off.  
  


<><>

  
Danny Hebert woke up and rolled over.  He was naked, in bed with his daughter.  He pulled the sheets back; she wore just panties.  Something about her naked body triggered a memory; last night, after the meeting, talking … getting undressed …  
  
 _Did I fuck Taylor last night?  Or was that just a dream?_  
  
His balls certainly felt like he'd had a good hard fuck.  And she'd let him, to his recollection.  Maybe even encouraged it.  He felt himself swell at the thought, saw his erection harden.  
  
Danny Hebert was not one to deny himself a pleasure he wanted, and that he was able to get.  He reached out and caressed the sleeping girl's flank.  She awoke, and looked into his eyes.  
  
“Morning, Dad,” she murmured.  
  
He cupped her breast with one large hand.  “Morning, Taylor,” he replied.  Reaching down, he tugged at her panties.  
  
She read his intention in his eyes, and obediently slid out of them.  He watched as she spread her legs, opening herself to him.  Climbing up on top of her, he rubbed the head of his cock between her pussy lips, working to arouse her enough for penetration.  As he did so, he kissed her, his tongue pushing into her mouth.  
  
 _Never let it be said that I raped her._  
  
He felt the slipperiness, the wetness, and he poised himself and began to slide into her.  As Taylor gasped under him and opened her thighs wider, Danny Hebert began to fuck his daughter for the second time ever.  
  
But not, by a long shot, for the last time.  
  


<><>

  
**Three weeks later**  
  
“Woo hoo, home at last!”    
  
Taylor heaved her suitcase on to the bed, pawed through it for clothes to wear.  She picked out a pair of slinky shorts and a high-cut crop-top that Danny liked to see her in; come to think of it, Emma had such terrible fashion sense.  Maybe Taylor could help her out a bit.  
  
She was down to her underwear when her father walked past the open door.  
  
“Hey,” he greeted her.  “Going somewhere?”  
  
“Yeah, over to Emma's,” she told him, turning around.  She was topless, of course; all she wore for underwear these days was panties, and quite often not even those.  
  
“Kiss before you go?” he asked, entering the bedroom.  He wanted more than a kiss, she knew quite well.  
  
“Okay, fine,” she sighed, pulling her panties down and stepping out of them.  Lying back across the bed, she spread her legs.  
  
He undid his belt and pulled his jeans down, exposing his already-stiffening erection.  She licked her fingers and rubbed herself, to put a little moisture down there; moments later, her father was pushing his cock into her tight young pussy.  
  
She wrapped her legs around his waist as he thrust into her.  For once, it wasn't bad.  
  
“Oh yeah, Dad,” she grunted.  “Like that.”  
  


<><>

  
Danny felt her soft young slippery pussy clenching around his invading cock, and he stroked harder and faster.  She cried out under him as he increased the pace, and he grinned, feeling his own orgasm approaching.    
  
“Take it, you little bitch,” he panted.  “Take my cock.”  
  
And then he came, pumping his thick seed deep into her womb, ramming his cock as hard into her as he could, over and over again.  
  
When he was finished, he nodded.  “That wasn't bad.  We're gonna have to do it in here more often.”  He pulled out of her, his cock coming free with a wet _plop_ , and tucked it away in his pants.  
  
“Don't be too late getting home,” he added.  “If I make anything, it'll be in the fridge.”  
  
With that, he turned and walked from the room, leaving his daughter with his cum dribbling from her freshly-fucked pussy.  
  


<><>

  
Taylor lay back and sighed.  Dad liked it when she pretended to cum, but for fuck's sake, could he just hold on another few minutes?  Sometimes it started getting good, then he just came and got off her.  
  
Pulling a pack of cigarettes out of the case, she eyed it askance.  She didn't like the taste, but the habit lingered.  And when this pack was gone, it was gone.  
  
 _Fuck it._   She pulled one out and lit it up.  Then a thought struck her; digging down into the depths of the case, she snorted in triumph as she found the stash; the contents of all the hotel minibars that she or her father had not already drunk.  Pulling the top off a miniature bottle of Scotch, she downed the contents in one long swallow.  
  
As an afterthought, she stashed a couple more in her bag.  
  


<><>

  
 Taylor banged on the front door of the Barnes house.  "Yo!" she called out.  "Rise and shine!"  
  
Alan Barnes opened the door.  "Hello, Taylor," he greeted her.  Then his nose wrinkled.  
  
She picked up on the cool tone in his voice, and stared at him.  "Hey, what's up, Mr B?  Just here to pick up the Emster, and go cruise the mall."  
  
He frowned.  “Uh, Taylor, have you been smoking?”  
  
She shrugged.  “What's it to you?  Dad's fine with it.”  She'd had two on the bus over, oblivious to the glares of the other passengers.  
  
He grimaced.  “Well, I'm not going to tell you what you can and can't do; you're not my daughter, after all.  But I'm going to have to ask you to not smoke in the house.”  
  
As he spoke, he eyed her outfit.  “And please tell me that your father doesn't approve of you wearing that in public.”  Her crop-top was high cut under her breasts, and tight enough to show off even Taylor's unimpressive endowment.  The shorts were equally tight, so much so that Alan was almost certain that she wasn't wearing anything under them.  
  
She grinned.  “Like what you see?”  
  
With a jolt, he realised that he had been staring at her crotch.  He jerked his eyes back to her face, trying to avoid noticing the fact that her nipples were pressing against the fabric of her top.  
  
“It's really not appropriate to say things like that, Taylor,” he admonished her.  
  
She shrugged, ignoring his words.  “Dad pretty well lets me do what I like.”  
  
“So I see,” Barnes replied.  “But in my house, my rules.  No smoking.”  Another scent caught his nose.  “And have you been drinking?”  
  
A shrug.  “Like I said, Dad lets me -”  
  
“All right, fine.  No drinking in the house, except with the permission of responsible adults.  Got it?”  
  
Another shrug.  “Sure.  Can I come in now, or do you want to give me the third degree?”  
  
He sighed.  She was Emma's friend, after all.  “Sure, come on in.”  
  
She gave him a false smile.  “Thanks, Mr B.”  As she slid past him, she pressed up against him, rubbing her breasts against his chest.  “Any time you want a closer look,” she murmured, “just ask.”  And then she was gone, into the house.  
  


<><>

  
Emma looked up as Taylor barged into her room, casually closing the door as she did so.  “Yo, Emster.  How're they hanging, beeyatch?”  
  
“Uh, fine,” Emma told her uncertainly.  Sophia was coming over shortly, and she didn't know how the two would get along.  Taylor's world was dark and mysterious and slightly dangerous, and she felt a thrill of risk whenever she went anywhere with the girl; Sophia, on the other hand was fun and happy and easy to get along with.  And there was the other bit, the secret identity, which she had sworn not to tell anyone about.  
  
She had once looked up to Taylor, had idolised her.  But that was before she had met Sophia.  Now she was re-evaluating her choices.  And more and more about Taylor was beginning to come up short.  
  
But Taylor was here now, and Emma decided that her worries could be shelved.  Her best friend was back from the trip, and they could have fun and paint each others' nails and be best friends again, like they used to be, before Taylor's mother left.  
  
Taylor plumped herself down on the bed beside Emma; immediately, the redhead smelt the smoke and alcohol on her friend's breath.  She had known that Taylor drank occasionally, but this smelt strong.  And she'd never smelt smoke on her breath before.  
  
“Have you been smoking and drinking?” she asked.  
  
Taylor lay back on the bed, arms outstretched.  “Oh man,  _have_ I?” she chuckled.  “Those meetings Dad takes me to?  Wall to wall booze, cigarettes for the taking.”   As she stretched, her crop-top gave up the unequal fight and her breasts popped out the bottom.  
  
“Taylor!” blurted Emma, blushing furiously, but sneaking another peek.   _Are those **teeth**  marks on her breasts?_  
  
“Oh, sorry,” Taylor apologised, but didn't fix the problem.  “You think they've gotten bigger?  I think they've gotten bigger.”  She cupped them, looking down at herself as she pushed them together.  
  
“I'm  _not_  looking at your breasts, Taylor,” Emma informed her, hand over her eyes.  “Put them away.”  
  
Taylor shrugged, pulling the top down again.  “Okay, fine, be a prude.”  
  
She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her bag.  “Want one?”  
  
Emma shook her head.  “I don't smoke, Taylor.  And nor should you.”  
  
“Dad lets me,” Taylor told her indistinctly, putting a cigarette in her own mouth, and digging through her bag for a lighter.  
  
“No, no, you can't smoke in my room!” Emma protested.  
  
“Eh, fine, whatevs, spoilsport.”  Taylor jerked the cigarette from her mouth and put it back in the pack.  “Stay in fifth grade forever.”  
  
“A lot of adults don't smoke,” Emma pointed out.  “Dad doesn't.  Nor does your dad.”  
  
“Pussies, the lot of them,” Taylor opined.  She put the pack in her bag, and pulled out a small bottle.  “Quick snort?”  She peered at the label.  “Says Johnny Walker Black Label.  I've got ten bucks says it's generic Scotch.”  Popping off the cap, she downed half of it in one swallow.  
  
Emma watched in horrified fascination.  She didn't know who this was, not any more.  The drinking wasn't exactly new, but previously it had been more of a 'dare-you-to' situation.  Now, it was a casual thing.  And the smoking was definitely new.  Also, the provocative clothing and behaviour.  She didn't know _what_  to make of that.  
  
“Here you go,” Taylor offered, holding out the bottle.  “Have a taste.  Put hair on your cunt."  
  
“No!” snapped Emma.  “I don't want to drink, and I don't want to smoke.”  Tears filled her eyes.  “Taylor … things used to be so much fun between us.  Now you're a whole different person.  What  _happened_  to you?”  
  
Taylor shrugged.  “Life happened.  Come on, live a little.”   She offered the bottle again.  “Just one drink.  You'll see how much fun it is.”  She tried to force it to Emma's mouth.    
  
Emma pushed it away.  “No!”  
  
Taylor grinned and dropped the bottle on the bed, where it spilled.  She pushed her top up to expose her breasts; Emma stared.  “Then let me show you what else I learned, while I was away.”  Pulling Emma close, she tried to kiss her; at the same time, she ran her hand up under Emma's top, and squeezed her breast.  
  
Emma struggled, feeling Taylor's hand sliding inside her bra, fingers digging into her sensitive flesh.  “No!  Get off!”  
  
Taylor rolled her eyes.  “Come on, you know you want to.”  She tried again to kiss Emma, her breath stinking of booze and cigarette smoke.  
  
“I said no!”  Emma pushed her away violently.  
  


<><>

  
Alan Barnes heard the raised voices and frowned.  He headed down the corridor and knocked on Emma's bedroom door.  “Is everything all right in there?”  
  
“No, Dad!” came Emma's voice at once.  “Hel- mmmph!”  
  
He opened the door, to find Taylor and Emma struggling, Taylor's top pulled up to show her breasts, and Emma's top disarranged, Taylor with her hand over Emma's mouth, and the stink of cheap alcohol pervading the room.  
  
Striding forward, he pulled Taylor from on top of Emma.  “What in god's name is going on here?” he demanded.  
  
“Nothing you need to worry about, Mr B,” Taylor spat.  “Let me go.  Emma and I were just play fighting, weren't we, Emma?”  
  
“No, we weren't,” Emma sobbed.  “Taylor wanted to smoke and drink, and she wanted to make me drink, and I didn't want to, and she spilled it on the bed, and she tried to kiss me and she put her hand up my top, Dad ...”  
  
Taylor struggled; Alan did not let go.  “I think it's time you left, Taylor,” he told her coldly.   ”And put your clothes back on."  
  
Emma pulled her top down and sat up.  “Wait, Dad.  Just a minute.”  She got up and put her hands on Taylor's shoulders.  “What  _happened_  to you, Taylor?” she whispered.  “Why are you like this?”   She pulled Taylor's top back down into place.  
  
Taylor sneered at her.  “I grew up, Emma,” she retorted.  “Something you should try sometime.”  
  
Emma shook her head.  “No, this isn't you.  You're a nice person.  Please, can't you be that nice person again?”  
  
“Why?” asked Taylor blankly.  “So people can put shit on me?  Not fucking likely.”  
  
Emma handed Taylor her bag.  Her voice was sad.  “Then I guess this is goodbye.”  
  
Taylor stared.  “Wait just a fucking minute,” she blurted.  “You're kicking  _me_  out?  I don't get kicked out of places.”  
  
Alan began dragging her out of the room, and down the hall.  “This will be a first, then,” he observed grimly.  
  
“No!” shouted Taylor.  “No!  This shit does not happen!  Not to me!”   She twisted to look at Alan Barnes.  “That offer's still open, you know.”  
  
“Nope.”   Alan did not pause in his movements toward the door.  “Taylor, I'm afraid you have officially worn out your welcome.”  
  
They were at the front door, with Emma holding it open.  She looked sadly at Taylor as she stood panting on the porch.  “I'm sorry, Taylor.  But you hurt people.  You put people down.  I don't need that in my life."  
  
The gate clattered behind Taylor and she turned; a dark-skinned girl was just making her way up the path.  
  
"Who the fuck are you?" demanded Taylor.  
  
"I might ask the same thing," responded the newcomer.  
  
"Sophia, this is Taylor," Emma put in hastily.  "She was just leaving."  
  
"No, I wasn't," Taylor denied.  
  
"Yes, you were," Alan Barnes confirmed.  
  
Taylor glanced from one to the other, then stamped down the stairs.  She was a little taller than Sophia, but the other girl did not seem intimidated.  From the way she stood, she seemed well able to handle herself.  
  
"Fine," spat Taylor at last, and stamped down the path.  She slammed the gate on the way out.  
  
"That went well," observed Sophia to Emma.  
  
Emma sighed.  "Oh, you have  _no_  idea."  She took a deep breath, and tried to clear her mind of the unpleasantness that had just gone down with Taylor.  
  
Taking Sophia's hand, she led her indoors.  "Come on, I've got stuff to show you ..."


	9. Emma, Taylor and Sophia (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A farther look into what made our three heroines (for a given value of heroine) what they are today.

**Taylor**  
  
Dad's business trip took three weeks, more or less.  I went out to all his meetings with him.  In the course of them, I learned an important fact: he did not, as it happened, respect me for who I was.  I was an adjunct, a useful accessory.  The Hebert kid, who could smoke and drink and swear with the guys.  It was his party trick.  I'd show up, a skinny kid in a cocktail dress, they'd pour me a glass of whatever booze was going at the time, and I'd knock it back, then light up a cigarette and blow a smoke ring.  They loved it.  
  
Of course, I couldn't drink as much as the guys; I simply didn't have the body mass to absorb all that alcohol.  The one time I tried, Dad had to carry me back to the hotel.  He let me throw up in the toilet - the second and last time  _that_  ever happened, thank you very fucking much - and then poured me into bed.  I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.  
  
I woke up with my dress around my armpits, my panties off, and a mess between my legs.  Dad had fucked me while I was unconscious.  I wasn't really surprised.  He fucked me every other night of the trip.  
  
On an average night, he'd wait till I'd had the shower and got on the bed, then climb on top, put it in me, and fuck me till he came.  Sometimes, it was painful, sometimes it was all right, most of the time it was just a bit uncomfortable.  I used to watch TV while he was doing it, until he caught me at it.  Then I started pretending to like it, scratching at his back, wrapping my legs around his waist, moaning his name, stuff like that.  He liked that, and finished faster.  This worked for me.  
  
When he'd had a good night of negotiation, he'd have me in the bed, or bent over the end of it, as soon as we got in the room.  Then again in the bathroom, and sometimes again after we went to bed.  When he'd had a bad night, especially if I'd said or done something to embarrass him, he'd make me suck him off instead.  I didn't like the taste of his dick or his cum, but he made me do it anyway.  I think I preferred the sex to the blowjobs, but whatever he wanted, I did.  It had always been that way.  
  
One night went especially well; in the morning, he came into the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth, bent me over the washstand, and started fucking me then and there.  It got really awkward when the maid came in to clean up and caught us; he hadn't hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door.  I think she got fired; I never heard anything more about it.  But Dad was a lot more careful about that sign, after that.  
  
Despite what I'd said, I kept up the smoking and drinking.  It helped put a distance between me and the world, helped me pretend that I really was, on some level, Dad's partner, instead of just a clever kid, and the pussy he was fucking when we got back to the hotel room.  I'd smoke most of a packet of cigarettes - it helped that I didn't have a preference, as they all tasted grucky to me - and drink a few glasses of whatever booze they were serving, and in general hold up my end of the deal.  But I was careful to limit my intake; drinking with care, I would usually only have a light buzz on by the end of the night.  
  
I fucked two other guys on that trip.  One was the son of the union organiser from Cincinnati, I think.  He was about twice my age, and heavily built, like his father.  He seemed to have his dad's ear, so when he sat down beside me and started talking to me, Dad tipped me a slight nod.  I read this to mean 'be nice to him'.  
  
So I was nice to him.  I listened to him boast about his life, about how well his family was doing, and all his connections.  I pretended to be more giggly and drunk than I was - half a glass of Scotch, bitch please! - and let him guide me out of the room and out to the balcony.  I snuggled up to him as we looked out at the skyline, and I let him kiss me.  He wasn't a bad kisser, but he was like Dad and me, used to getting what he wanted.  
  
We kissed, and he felt me up, and I made the appropriate noises, and pretty soon he led me off to a darkened bedroom somewhere.  He pushed me down on to the bed, pushed my dress up, pulled my panties off, and got on top of me.  He came a bit faster than Dad, and that was about the only difference.  I went back to the meeting with my panties in my purse, and Dad closed the deal ten minutes later.  
  
Dad fucked me three times that night, after we got back to the hotel room.  When I woke up the next morning, my pussy felt like it had been beaten around with a baseball bat.  
  
The other guy I fucked was a Collective rep, a big wheel, from Texas.  I hear they like them young down that way.  He was about ten years older than Dad, and was looking me over from the moment I walked in.  Dad had obviously heard of his preferences, because for once I was wearing a bra - Dad preferred that I didn't, for ease of access - but it was one of those special ones, that pushed what tits I have up and gave me what almost looks like normal cleavage.    
  
I was seated next to this guy, and from the very start, he was paying me attention.  I got the message he wanted more than light chat when he started feeling up my thigh under the table.  Then he started feeling a lot more than my thigh.  I smiled at him and continued to chat, making sure that I didn't drop my drink or my cigarette when he got to a sensitive spot.  
  
The meeting ended, and through a complex code of nods, winks and headshakes, it transpired that I went back to this guy's hotel room with him.  The moment he closed the door, he was clumsily kissing me.  I kissed him back, then unzipped my dress; it slid off my shoulders like the expensive silk that it was, and left me in bra and panties.  
  
"Where do you want me?" I asked; it was my first mistake.  I was already pulling my panties down.  
  
"Wait a minute," he blustered.  "What's this?  You a hooker?"  
  
I frowned.  "No.  I'm Danny Hebert's daughter, Taylor."  
  
"Christ," he muttered.  "Hebert's whoring out his own daughter now."  
  
"Look," I told him bluntly.  "Dad told me to be here.  I'm fourteen, I'm willing to let you fuck me.  Where's the problem?"  
  
He shook his head.  "Just put your clothes back on, kid.  Go back to your dad."  
  
I shook mine in turn.  "No can do.  I got no money for a cab, and I'd be raped or murdered if I walk one block out there.  I'm staying the night here."  
  
"Suit yourself."  He turned and went into the bathroom.  
  
I shrugged, put the dress back on, and settled down on the half-lounge with a glass of something from the mini-bar, and a cigarette.  
  
He spent some time in there; when he came out, he walked over to where I was and jerked me to my feet without a word.  
  
I had him figured out now; he didn't want a willing partner.  He liked to be in charge.  
  
"What - what are you doing?" I quavered.  
  
He slapped me, not hard, and pushed me face-down over the end of the bed, then pushed my dress up.  My panties he ripped off me, yanked them so hard they tore.  Then he forced himself into my pussy.  I cried out as he did so, more for show than anything; his cock was about half the size of Dad's.  I continued to sob and cry and whimper as he 'raped' me; when he came, he pulled out, so that it splattered all over my ass and back and thighs.  Seriously, some people.  Why can't they just let it happen inside like normal people?  
  
It was, overall, a bit more uncomfortable than the average with Dad, but not really painful.  I got up, pulling the dress off so it didn't get cum stains on it, and went into the bathroom to clean up.  By the time I came out, he was asleep.  
  
There was a briefcase full of papers; Dad had made a comment that he'd give a lot to see what was in there.  So I took the case into the bathroom, locked the door, and carefully took a picture of every single document with my camera phone.  Then I came back out, put the case back where it had been, and curled up on the half-lounge to get what sleep I could.  
  
In the morning, he ignored me; I may as well have not been in the room.   I waited in the lobby until Dad stopped off in a taxi to pick me up.  He didn't ask me how it went, and I didn't tell him; I just silently handed the phone over.  He spent quite a bit of time paging through the pictures I'd taken.  Then he kissed me; it was the only sign of non-sexual affection I'd gotten off him since the trip started.  
  


<><>

  
I guess I did a lot of smoking and drinking over that trip, but while I had cravings for a while after, booze and cigarettes are fucking expensive, and Dad had made it clear that he would not be supporting any habits I had.  So I didn't do it after I got home.  
  
And as for the other thing I learned how to do ... yeah, Dad and me kept doing it, on and off.  Or rather, he did it to me.  I never went to him, or anyone else, for sex.  It didn't interest me.  Sure, I'm attracted to hunky boys, but not to the point I want to spread my legs for them.  But yeah, Dad kept fucking me, and I kept letting him.  It was the easiest way.  
  
What I did do was go and visit my best bud, Emma Barnes.  We'd been tight since fuck knows when, and I wanted to get back in touch.  But to my utter and total surprise, she'd become a total prude in that time, and even managed to pick up a new friend while I'd been gone.  Some black bitch called Sophia fucking Hess.  Dumped me in favour of her.  I couldn't fucking believe it.  
  
I actually went to Dad about it, asked him if he could do something about it.  He looked into it, found out that Sophia's dad was non-union.  He couldn't touch him.  And he wouldn't have the guy's legs broken, just on my say-so.  
  
 _Fuck._  
  
So, yeah, when school started, I was in a pretty foul mood.  It didn't help that when I tried to assert my natural position of alpha bitch, all too often, Emma and Sophia would intervene.  I couldn't scare either of them away, and when I tried to organise my own little bunch of leg-breakers - or at least, ass-kickers - it turned out that Sophia could kick ass pretty well herself.  
  
So there I was, at a loose end, suspended for a week, and joining the Upsiders - a bunch of  _heroes_ , if you can believe that.  
  
That, and the fact that the hunky Brian had shown that he could fuck me into a screaming orgasm unlike any other.  
  
Yeah, things were looking up.  After a fashion.  
  


<><>

  
**Emma and Sophia**  
  
 **August 2009**  
  
"So what was that all about?" asked Sophia, once they were in Emma's room.  Emma had stripped the bed and turned over the mattress, but the smell of alcohol was still faintly evident.  
  
Emma shook her head.  "I used to be best friends with Taylor.  But she had family problems - her mom was sleeping around.  Men and women both.  When her dad found out, he beat her up pretty bad, and she left - and Taylor's started getting meaner and meaner.  And she's just been on a trip with her dad, and now she smokes and drinks, and I don't understand her any more."  
  
Sophia put a hand on her shoulder.  "That's not your fault," she reassured Emma gently.  
  
Emma looked up at her and smiled.  "Thanks.  But it kind of was.  I would go around with her in middle school, and I'd back her up when she took kids' lunch money.  We'd go to fundraisers or whatever, and because Taylor was Danny's daughter, they'd let us in to the back rooms, or drink whatever we liked at the bar."  She grimaced.  "I don't actually like alcohol.  Taylor used to drink a little bit, just to show off."  
  
Sophia nodded.  "So she had power, and she showed it off, and you were impressed."  
  
"You're so understanding, Soph.  Yeah, that's exactly how it was.  And I guess I had fun being her sidekick, or whatever I was.  I certainly wasn't in charge.  And Dad said something to me, and then I met you, and I saw the contrast between you and her.  And when Dad told me that he thought you were a nice kid ... well, I know that I can't have both of you as friends at the same time, so I had to make the choice.  And I've made it."  
  
Sophia hugged Emma spontaneously.  "Aww, Emma, that's so sweet of you."  
  
Emma hugged her back.  "See, this is another thing I miss from Taylor.  Once upon a time, we'd hug.  Now ... not so much."  
  
"Well, I got all the hugs in the world for you, Emma."  She rested her forehead against the redhead's.  "Aren't you glad you and your dad drove down that one side street?"  
  
Emma nodded.  "Oh, definitely."  
  
Sophia looked at her oddly.  "Something else on your mind.  I can tell.  Spit it out."  
  
Emma blushed.  "I ... well, I enjoy hugging you.  A lot.  Maybe a little too much.  Is that weird?"  
  
Sophia grinned.  "Nope, not weird at all."  She caressed Emma's cheek with her hand.  "Because I feel just a little way like that toward you too."  
  
Emma shivered.  "So what do we do about it?"  
  
Sophia leaned in, very slowly, and gently kissed her.  Emma did not resist, did not pull back.  She felt Sophia's warm lips on hers, and she responded.  There was no tongue, no groping, just a pleasant soft pressure that sent sparks all the way through Emma's brain.  
  
Eventually, they broke contact, and leaned back, away from each other.    
  
Emma broke the silence first.  "Wow."  
  
Sophia blinked.  "Yeah.  Wow."  
  
"Is it ... always like that?  For you, I mean?"  
  
"Nope.  Not for me.  You?"  
  
Emma hung her head and didn't speak.  
  
“It's okay,” Sophia told her softly.  “You don't have to tell me.”  
  
“No,” Emma replied.  “I want to.  I – Taylor, she just tried to molest me, to kiss me.  And I didn't want to.  Not with her.  It felt wrong.  But it doesn't, not with you.  Why?”  
  
Sophia considered this.  "Maybe you just aren't attracted to her?"  
  
Emma nodded.  "But yeah, I think ... I think I'm attracted to you.  Especially after that kiss."  
  
"Yeah," agreed Sophia.  "I'm kind of bi, I've known that for a while.  But yeah, you're crazy attractive, and I think I'm starting to be crazy attracted to you."  
  
"I really don't know how to feel about that," Emma confessed.  "I always thought I was straight.  Every time I've looked at Taylor's ass, was I thinking about sleeping with her?"  
  
Sophia laughed.  "No, dummy.  People can look at each other and not be thinking about sex with them.  And even though I think you're hot and you think I'm hot, we're not going to be sleeping with each other any time soon."  
  
Emma blinked.  " ... we're not?  I thought that was how it worked.."  
  
"Nope."  Sophia leaned in and kissed her again, just as gently.  Sparks, all over again.  "We're going to do this at a rate you're comfortable with.  And right now, I can see you're really tense.  So our clothes are going to stay on, and we're going to look at whatever you wanted to show me, and we're going to gossip about totally meaningless stuff."  
  
Emma felt as though she'd gone to take a step up, and nothing had happened.  It felt strange.  "We are?"  
  
Sophia hugged her.  It felt really nice, but not weird.  "We are.  If we're going to be together, we're going to take it slow.  And we don't let on we're a couple at school.  Way too much fuel for the fire, there."  
  
Emma kissed her again, experimentally.  It felt just as good as the first two times.  "Well, you seem to know what you're doing, so we'll do it that way."  
  
Sophia nodded.  "It's advice my dad gave me, once upon a time."  
  
Emma smiled.  "I like your dad.  He's a smart man."  
  
Sophia grinned.  "Now, to change the subject entirely, you were going to show me something?"  
  
"Oh yeah."  Emma grabbed her laptop.  "Check out this new site I found.  You can put in your body measurements, it makes a virtual dummy of you, and you can try on clothes ..."  
  
Alan looked in on them, several minutes later.  Red head and dark were side by side, clicking the mouse, murmuring to each other and making adjustments to the dummies on the screen.  They were so totally engrossed in what they were doing that he didn't have the heart to bother them.  Smiling, he went on his way.  
  


<><>

  
**August, 2010**  
  
"Shadow Stalker."  
  
Sophia jumped violently.  She had been certain she was alone on the rooftop, overlooking the jewelry store.  Turning hastily, with her crossbow coming up to the ready, she realised that shooting would be worse than useless.  Three capes faced her; Sellsword, Artillery and Speedfreak.  Artillery had some sort of gun pointed at her; Sophia had absolutely zero doubt in her mind that any attempt at flight or resistance would see her in a lot of pain.  Or dead.  
  
"Oh shit."  It was the only think she could think to say.  
  
Artillery's face was impassive behind the gas-mask that she habitually wore, but Sellsword's mouth creased in a brief smile, as did Speedfreak's.  
  
"Uh, look, guys, if you were gonna hit this place, it's fine, I'll go someplace else," babbled Sophia.  "Seriously.  No trouble from me."  
  
Sellsword shook his head.  "No.  It's not the store.  It's you."  
  
Her voice rose to an even higher register.  "Me?" she squeaked.  
  
Speedfreak nodded jerkily.  He did everything jerkily, as though he was permanently on double speed.  "Yeah, you," he told her rapidly.  
  
"You commit crimes in Sydicate territory, and you do not pay us tribute," Artillery put in, her voice a monotone.  
  
Sophia blinked rapidly behind her mask.  "Um, um, um, how do I make this good?" she asked.  
  
Sellsword's smile widened a touch.  "And that's the right question.  You're coming with us."  
  
"Can - can I ask where we're going?"  
  
Sellsword showed his teeth.  His answer made Sophia's guts clench, and her knees turn to water.  
  
"You're going to see the Pig."  
  


<><>

  
Sophia stood in the middle of the carpet, in front of the large desk.  It needed to be large, because the Pig was sitting behind it.  
  
No-one knew her real name; everyone called her the Pig.  She was at least four hundred pounds of blubber and piggy visage, with vast breasts that threatened to overflow out of the loose top that she wore.  Sophia could swear she saw nipples; it made sense, as no bra would ever contain those masses of flesh.  She was eating at the time.  Sophia watched with horrible fascination.  
  
The Pig hardly paused for breath between bites, and still she was able to talk to Sophia.  
  
"Shadow Stalker."  It was not a question.  
  
"Uh, yes, ma'am."   _Be really, really, really polite._  
  
The head wobbled, chins shook.  Maybe she had nodded.  
  
"Real name Sophia Hess."  
  
Sophia nodded.  "Yes, ma'am."  The unwritten rules about not unmasking capes apparently did not apply to the Pig.  
  
"You steal in our territory, and do not pay us tribute."  
  
Sophia swallowed.  She really, really, really wanted to pee right now.  She held it in.  
  
"Yes, ma'am.  I'm sorry, ma'am."  
  
"Sorry doesn't pay the bills.  You have three options."  
  
She paused to ingest what looked like most of a roast turkey.  Sophia waited, but she did not continue.  
  
"Ma'am?"  
  
The piggy gaze turned back to her.  "One.  You can pay back all the tribute that you owe us, with interest."  
  
Sophia's heart sank.  Her 'earnings' had gone directly to supporting her family.  She could never pay that.  
  
"Ma'am ... we ... I ... don't have that sort of money."  
  
The implacable visage did not turn from her.  "You can earn it.  The Market, for instance."  
  
The Market.  Sophia had heard about it.  Go there, pay a fee for a stall, and offer herself out to strangers at whatever prices she chose to charge.  There were men who cruised the Market, looking for underage girls.  She would make the money, no doubt about it.  What price to her soul, to her own self ... that was another matter altogether.  
  
"No," she blurted convulsively.  "No.  I can't do that."  
  
"Well, there is the second option.  You can join the Minions.  Your wages will be garnished for your debt, but you will get enough to live on."  
  
Sophia considered that.  "Uh ... what's the third option, ma'am?"  
  
The piggy visage widened in a malevolent grin.  "You do  _not_  want to know, little girl."  
  
And all of a sudden, she didn't.  She really didn't.  
  
"Um, okay.  Looks like I'm joining the Minions, then."  
  
"Welcome aboard."  The Pig spared her not another glance; she went back to eating.  Sophia backed out of the room, glad to be out of there with her life.  
  


<><>

  
Sophia looked with dismay at the costume they had given her.  "What is this?"  Gone was the cloak.  The hockey mask was down to a simple domino.  And the bodysuit ...  
  
Usurper, current leader of the Minions in Brockton Bay, pointed at it.  "Your costume."  
  
"But ... there's  _bits_  missing out of it."  
  
He nodded.  "Cutouts."  
  
"But ...  _why?"_  
  
"The news likes to see female villains getting around in skimpy attire.  It raises our approval ratings.  Full body suits don't cut it, not any more.  So, cutouts."  
  
Sophia studied the costume some more.  It would show her belly, some of her thighs and arms, her cleavage ...  
  
 _Think of Dad and Mom.  Think of my family._  
  
"I ... guess.  But where's the cloak?"  
  
"You don't need it.  It's got too much chance of hiding your body."  
  
Sophia sighed in resignation.  "Okay ... sure."    
  
She headed into the other room to change, and felt not much better about it when she came out.  Then Usurper handed her the crossbows and the case of arrows.  Automatically, she checked the latter.  
  
"Wait a minute," she protested.  "These things are  _sharp!"_  
  
"Well, yeah," he agreed.  "That's the whole point of arrows, so to speak.  They're sharp.  You go shooting blunt arrows at people, no-one respects you.  No-one  _fears_  you."  
  
She swallowed.  "I'm really not comfortable with ..."  
  
He lowered his brow.  "Do you want to go and tell the Pig you've changed your mind?"  
  
She swallowed again.  "No," she admitted in a small voice.  
  
"Oh, and one other thing," he told her, with evident relish.  "Shadow Stalker's too wimpy.  From now on, you're Shadow Slayer."  
  
It was almost too much.  Almost, she shoved the whole thing back at him and told him where to stick the Minions.  Almost.  
  
But not quite.  
  
Too many people were depending on her.  
  
She had to grit her teeth and get through it.  
  
When she turned eighteen, she was out of the Minions, and she could be a lone villain all she liked, or join the Syndicate under her original name.  But until then ...  
  


<><>

  
**December 2010**  
  
Emma awakened from a light doze at the tap on her window.  She rolled over and opened it, and the costumed figure tumbled into the room.  
  
"Sophia?" she whispered.  "What are you doing here?"  
  
"Oh god, oh god, I had to come and see you."  Sophia's voice was on the edge of tears.  "Hold me, just hold me."  
  
Emma held her friend tightly.  She was shuddering.  "What's the matter?"  
  
"Everyone.  Everything.  Mom and Dad don't know how bad it is in the Minions.  I can't tell them, or Dad might do something."  
  
Emma went cold all over.  "They haven't ..."  
  
Sophia shook her head.  "No.  But it's the constant  _pressure_.  Shadow Slayer, you've got to front up more.  Shadow Slayer, you've got to live up to your name.  Shoot someone, for fuck's sake."  She clutched Emma tightly.  "And Chauvinist making passes all day long.  Comments, jibes, trying to look down my top ..."  
  
Emma held her close, stroked her hair.  "It's okay, Sophia.  I'm here.  You can stay here as long as you like."  
  
Sophia's shaking began to decrease.  "Thanks, Emma.  You have no idea how much I appreciate this."  
  
"Hey, you're my best friend.  What are friends for?"  Emma made room on the bed, and Sophia settled down with a sigh of relief.  
  
"So Chauvinist is living up to his name, then?"  
  
"Oh, you have no idea.  I walked in on him and Redshift having sex the other day.  I'm not sure if he was putting it in her pussy or her ass, but he was doing her doggy-style over the meeting room table.  And they didn't  _care_.  Stopwatch walked in behind me, asked me if I wanted to make it a foursome."  
  
"Redshift?"  Emma was shocked.  "Isn't she, like, eleven?"  
  
"Thirteen," sighed Sophia.  "She's  _proud_  of being the team sex-toy."  
  
"Wow," Emma marvelled.  "I had no idea."  She held Sophia close and kissed her on the cheek.  "I'm proud of you, for doing a difficult job and sticking in there."  
  
"I don't know how much longer I can stand this strain."  Sophia kissed Emma back, on the lips.  "Emma ... I'm going to ask you to do me a really big favour."  
  
Dazed, Emma blinked.  "What?"  
  
Sophia kissed her again.  "Emma ... can you make love to me?   Please?"  
  
Emma kissed her friend one more time, then lifted her sleeping shift over her head.  Under it, she wore only a pair of flimsy panties.  These were equally quickly disposed of.  
  
"Sophia," she breathed, "I've only been waiting for you to ask."    
  
She kissed Sophia urgently, lips melding to one another, tongues frantically duelling.  Reaching up behind Sophia's back, she located the zipper for her costume and drew it down ...  
  


<><>

  
Afterwards, they lay back, bathed in sweat.  
  
"Oh god," groaned Emma.   _"So_  worth the wait."  
  
Sophia nodded.  "Oh yeah," she agreed.  She kissed Emma again, lazily.  "I hate to go."  
  
"You can stay the night," Emma urged her.  "There's room.  You don't have to go if you don't want to."  
  
"Oh god, thank you."  Sophia snuggled down next to Emma.  "You really have no idea how much I appreciate this."  
  
It didn't take her long to drop off to sleep.  
  


<><>

  
**January 2, 2011**  
  
  
“I really wish there was something we could do to help Taylor,” fretted Emma.  “I've tried, and I've tried, and I've tried.  She just won't listen.”  
  
“Have you tried staging an intervention?” asked Sophia.  
  
Emma blinked.  “Um, no.  How do you do that?”  
  
Sophia explained.  It sounded so simple.  Even Emma's father thought so.  
  
In reality, not so much.  
  
  


<><>

  
**Taylor (again)**  
  
  
There was a knock on the door.  I frowned.  That wasn't Dad; it was too early for him to be home, and he wouldn't knock anyway.  I thought about ignoring it, but it came again.  
  
“Taylor!”  It was Emma's voice.  “Can we come in, please?”  
  
 _What the fuck is Emma doing here?_  
  
I got off the couch and went to open the door.  Not only was Emma there, but so was her father.  
  
“So, she's dropped you, has she?” I enquired.  “Come crawling back to me?”  
  
“Is your father home?” asked her father.  
  
I shook my head.  “Nah.  At a meeting.  Discussing shit with the mayor.”  Kickbacks and bribes, I knew from experience.  
  
Emma shook her head.  “We need to talk to you.  Can we come in, please?” she asked again.  
  
I shrugged, and wished I had a cigarette.   _If she wants me back as her friend, she's gonna have to do some crawling, all right.  This should be good._    “Sure, knock yourself out.”  
  
I was wearing a pair of ratty old panties that were well-stained with Dad's cum, and would have fresh stains on them when he got home.  My bra was barely holding in place, but I didn't give a shit.  If Barnes senior wanted to look, let him look.  If he wanted to fuck me, then let him fuck me.  If he wanted to fuck Emma in front of me, then I'd give him pointers.  
  
I wandered back into the living room, sat on the couch.  “So talk,” I told her bluntly.  “Make it good.  That shit you pulled on me -”  
  
Emma's father sat on the other end of the couch, and turned to face me.  “Taylor,” he told me seriously, “we've come to talk to you, about your behaviour.”  
  
I stared at him.  “What the fuck are you talking about?”  
  
Emma chimed in.  “Taylor, please.  I've been trying to talk to you all year, and you just keep doing this to yourself.  Are you still smoking and drinking?”  
  
I rolled my eyes.  “Only when I can get it.  Dad refuses to pay for it, the fucking tightass.”  
  
Alan shook his head.  “This is very self-destructive behaviour, Taylor.  Emma and I care about what happens to you -”  
  
I burst out laughing.  “Fuck you!  You threw me out of your fucking house!”  
  
“Only because you tried to drink and smoke after you'd been told not to,” Alan reminded me.  
  
”And because you put your hand up my top and grabbed my breast,” Emma mumbled.  
  
I stared at them both.  “Fucking  _really_?  Is that why?  Fuck, I thought it was something important.  Like that prissy little friend of yours, Sophia.  What you see in her, I'll never know.”  
  
Emma stared at me.  “Because she's like you used to be, once upon a time, Taylor,” she told me earnestly.  
  
“You mean, stupid?”  I laughed harshly.  They both flinched.  
  
Emma tried again.   _She really can't let well enough, could she?_   “No.   _Nice._ ”  She paused.  “Well, nicer than you are now,” she amended, with more honesty than I'd expected.  “I  _liked_  you, Taylor, and not just because you could take me behind the scenes.  I liked you as a  _friend_.  We used to have  _fun_  together.  Why can't we be like that again?”  
  
I shook my head.  “I  _was_  having fun, Emma, when I was going around, kicking ass and taking what I wanted from people.  And you were helping me.  You were having fun then too, weren't you?”  
  
Emma flushed and ducked her head; her father gave her a sharp glance.  
  
“Yes,” she admitted in a low tone of voice, “but I've changed.  I can see what a bitch I was being.”  She raised her eyes to mine.  “And if I can see it, if I can change, then you can too, Taylor.  You were always smarter than me.  It should be easier for you.”  She held out her hand.  “I can help.”  
  
From his end of the couch, Alan held out his hand as well.  “We can help, Taylor.  We  _will_  help.  All you have to do is ask.  We'll be there.”  He drew a deep breath.  “You're welcome back any time you want to visit.  What happened last time, we'll forget it ever happened.  A fresh start.”  
  
I wavered on the edge of accepting.  Could it be this easy?  Just walk away from my uncaring home life, away from being Dad's casual fuck-toy?  Was I so invested in what Dad wanted, what he needed, that I needed to stay home with him?  
  
Did Emma really care for me that much, that she'd come to me and beg me to let her help me?  Or was this some sort of trick?  But try as I might, I could not figure out the angle she was playing.  
  
I took a deep breath; Emma and her father leaned forward slightly, unconsciously.  “I -”  
  
And then the front door opened.  “Taylor, you here?”  
  
It was Dad.  And it was like a switch had been flicked by his voice, his presence.  I couldn't believe I'd even thought that way, considered taking their offer.  I was needed here.  Dad needed me here.  
  
It was easy not to think too hard about  _what_  he needed me for.  
  
I raised my voice.  “In here, Dad.”  
  
“Those syphilitic dog-sucking motherfucking cocksucking ass-bandits.  All take, take -”  
  
He appeared from the entrance hall, carrying a large paper bag, then stopped short.  “What the fuck?  What are you doing here?”  
  
Alan shook his head.  “We came here to talk to Taylor about her behaviour, but I can see now where she gets it from.”  He stood up.  “I want you to let Taylor come and stay with me and Zoe and Emma for a while.  We need to -”  
  
Dad's harsh laughter overrode his voice.  “Not fucking likely.  That bitch of a wife of mine tried to take her, but I beat that, and I'll kick your ass if you ever try the same thing.  Taylor's  _my_  daughter, aren't you, Taylor?”  
  
I got up from the couch and went to him.  “Yes, Dad.  I'm your daughter.”  As I stood alongside him, I felt his hand siding into my panties, cupping my ass cheek, squeezing it.  
  
He nodded.  “Good girl.”  He handed me the paper bag.  “Something I picked up from the meeting for you.”  
  
It was heavy; I opened it to find half a bottle of Johnny Walker Red Label, plus three packs of cigarettes.  I pulled out the bottle and one of the packs; like the bottle, the pack was half empty.  His hand squeezed my ass cheek, fingers digging into my flesh.  I did my best not to react.  Pulling the top off the bottle, I chugged a few mouthfuls.    
  
“Fuck, Dad, that's the good stuff.”  
  
He showed his teeth in what might have been a smile.  “Only the best for my little girl.  Oh, and Fred Chambers wants to know if his boy Ken can take you to the movies for his plus one, next week.”  
  
I knew what 'plus one' meant.  Ken Chambers would be fucking me, later that night.  Maybe his dad too, if he wanted.  Whatever Dad wanted me to do.  
  
“Sure thing, Dad,” I agreed at once.  Exactly as he knew I would.  
  
We looked at Alan and Emma Barnes, who were still standing there.  With Dad's arrival, the balance had shifted once more.  Now, I couldn't even imagine giving up the life I had.  I pulled out a cigarette from the packet, and lit it with the lighter that had been in there as well.  
  
“Sorry,” I told them both in the frozen silence, “but I'm just gonna have to turn down your kind offer.”  I blew a smoke ring.  “So why don't the two of you just fuck off.”  
  
“Taylor ...”  Emma tried again, reaching toward me.  
  
 _”Fuck off!”_  I screamed.  
  
Alan put a hand on her shoulder, and they turned and left.  We heard the door close.  
  
Dad turned to slide his arm around me, and he kissed me.  I felt him undoing my bra, and my panties followed shortly after.  I finished the cigarette bent over the kitchen table, as Dad fucked me from behind, with hard, brutal strokes.  
  
By the time he came inside me, I had already forgotten about their visit.  
  
And then the phone rang.  
  


<><>

  
**Emma and Alan**  
  
“I don't like it,” Alan Barnes muttered.  “I'm not an expert, but that situation screams 'abuse' to me.”  He took a deep breath.  “I'm going to make a few calls, see if there isn't anything I can do.”  
  
On the way home, Emma listened as he made one speakerphone call after another.  Eventually, he was down to one name, a Justice Cardwell.  Everyone else had gotten cold feet, as soon as Danny Hebert's name had come up.  
  
“I'm sure she's being abused,” Alan told him frankly.  “The drinking, the swearing, the acting out at school.  My daughter was friends with her for a long time, and she can attest to the difference in her character.”  He paused.  “I'll call you back, once I'm out of the car,” he added, with a glance at Emma.  
  
 _“I'll be waiting,”_  Cardwell promised.  
  
Once at home, Alan shut himself in his study and called Cardwell back.  
  
“He brought home cigarettes and alcohol for her,” he told the judge.  “I saw them; Emma did too.  And he's got influence over her; what she thinks, what she says, she's modelling it ever closer to what he thinks and says.  That's not a good household for a fifteen year old.”  He lowered his tone.  “And I've getting distinct overtones of sexual abuse too.  She was wearing just underwear, and he made a date for her with the thirty-two year old son of one of his cronies.  Since when does a fifteen year old go out on a date with a man twice her age?"  He took a deep breath.  “Can you help me with this?”  
  
 _“It does sound serious,”_  Cardwell agreed.   _“Let me get back to you.  I'll ring you later tonight.”_  
  
“Thank you, sir,” Alan told him with relief.  “I'll be waiting on your call.”  
  
He put the phone down with a sense of a job well done.  
  


<><>

  
**Danny and Taylor**  
  
Dad took the call, and he spent several moments swearing.  
  
“Fine,” he growled at last.  “I can help you out.  That thing you wanted done?  Consider it settled.  Good enough?”  
  
The answer seemed to be in the affirmative.  "One more thing,” he added.  “I need you to come meet me.  Something we need to do.  It's in your interests as well as mine.”  
  
They spoke for a few more moments, then he hung up.  
  
“That'll fuck him,” he grinned viciously.  ”Get some clothes on.  Something sexy.  We're going for a drive.”  
  
“Where are we going?” I asked, heading for the stairs.  
  
“You'll see.”  
  


<><>

  
I wore a tight t-shirt, no bra, and a short skirt with lace panties underneath as we got out of the car.  Even at seven o'clock at night, the Market was booming.  People were walking in and out all the time.  
  
Dad took my hand and we walked toward the entrance.  As we neared it, I saw a thick red line painted right across the threshold.  Above the doorway, and on either side, large signs proclaimed the same thing.  
  
 **LORD STREET FLESH MARKET  
 _Entry to these Premises Includes the Automatic Condition that You are No Longer Bound by United States Laws Regarding Obscenity, Underage Sex, Incest, or Any Related Subject.  Nor May Any Individual Seek Protection Under Any of Those Laws, While Within These Premises.  All Persons Entering Must State Positively That They Do So of Their Own Free Will._**  
  
We entered a short corridor, and a door closed behind us.  A voice came from a speaker.   _”Place your hand on the plate and state that you are here of your own free will.”_  
  
There was a plate with a lit-up hand shape.  Dad placed his hand on it.  “I am here of my own free will.”  Taking his hand off, he stepped aside.    
  
I placed my hand on the plate.  “I am here of my own free will.”  
  
The door before us opened.  
  
We entered the Market.  
  


<><>

  
Stalls lined the concourse; some were subtle, with animated graphics on their signs, while others simply blared out SEX SEX SEX!  In nearly all of them, women of varying ages and appearances sat or stood.  Some were fully clothed, some were in underwear, and a few were totally nude.  One that advertised Blowjobs While-You-Wait, a topless woman was on her knees, 'servicing' a client, right there in plain view.  Three men stood waiting for their turns.  
  
“You could do well there,” Dad commented, pointing to her.  “You're a real good cocksucker.”  
  
I chose not to answer; I didn't like sucking him off, and he knew it.  
  
We found our way to the administration centre of the Market; as we approached, Dad was hailed by an older man, maybe in his sixties.  
  
“Charlie,” he greeted the man, shaking his hand.  “Good to see you.”  
  
I looked curiously at the man, and at the girl who held his hand.  I judged her at thirteen or so; she was cute, with pigtails and a school uniform.  
  
“Hi,” she greeted me.  “I'm Gretchen.”  
  
“Taylor,” I replied shortly.  
  
All four of us entered the admin centre, and Charlie gave some money to Gretchen.  “You and Taylor go up to the counter and pay for the stall, okay, honey?”  
  
“Okay, Grandpa,” she giggled, grabbing my hand.  “Come on, Taylor, this is fun.”  
  
We approached the counter, and Gretchen handed the money over.  “A two-bed stall, thank you,” she told the matronly lady behind the counter.  
  
“A two bed stall, here you are,” the lady replied.  “Are you both here of your own free will?”  
  
“Yes, I am,” Gretchen replied.  I hesitated, thinking back to Emma and Alan's visit.  Gretchen elbowed me and hissed, “You're supposed to say yes!”  
  
I glanced back at Dad, then shrugged.  “Yeah, I'm here of my own free will.”  
  
The woman, who had begun to look a little apprehensive, smiled and nodded.  She handed an electronic tag to Gretchen.  “It's nice to see you again, Gretchen.”  
  
As we went back to Dad and Charlie, I looked at her curiously.  “She knows you?”  
  
She grinned, showing a lost tooth.  “Oh yeah, Grandpa and me come here all the time.  He likes to stick it in me.”  
  
“Ah.”  
  


<><>

  
The tag we had been given led us to a stall on a long, long concourse with a sign over the entrance: JAILBAIT ALLEY.  As we walked down, I could see why; every single person, male or female, in the stalls, was underage.  And as with the other areas, sometimes the sex acts were going on right in public.  I watched, mildly fascinated, as what looked like a family group disported themselves; the father sliding his cock into his young teenage daughter's pussy, while the mother took it up the ass from the older teenage son.  The two women kissed, fondling each others' breasts, as their holes were repeatedly filled by large cocks.  
  
Gretchen swiped the tag and we entered the stall.  Charlie took it from her and swiped it again at a discreetly-placed terminal.  Rapidly he typed, and the electronic sign over our heads showed the message PRIVATE PARTY: INVITATION ONLY.  
  
At least three men, who had seemed ready to follow us in, groaned and turned away.  
  
Gretchen led the way through a curtain to the back area, which contained two beds and not much else.  She was already taking her clothes off; I noted with some jealousy that she seemed to have bigger breasts than me, though not by much.  I shrugged and peeled my top off, then dropped my skirt to the floor.  
  
Dad's clothes followed shortly after, but he seemed to have eyes for Gretchen's supple young body as opposed to mine.  I smiled at Mr Cardwell as he dropped his trousers to the floor, turning so that he could see my ass in the lace panties.  
  
“Do you like what you see?”  
  
He moved up to me, running his hands over my body, between my legs.  Between us, I could feel his erection hardening rapidly.  He kissed me; I returned it.  My panties slid to the floor.  
  
A soft cry from beside me caught my attention; Dad already had Gretchen bent over one of the beds.  His cock was sliding into her from behind, and she seemed to be showing every evidence of enjoying it.  
  
As Dad began to fuck young Gretchen, I lay back on the other bed, and opened my legs for her grandfather.  
  
After all, what was one more fuck?  
  


<><>

  
**Alan Barnes**  
  
Alan Barnes paced the floor.   _Cardwell should have called back by now.  What's keeping him?_  
  
His mobile beeped, indicating an incoming text.  He snatched it up.  
  
 _“Barnes,  
Sorry.  
Got a better offer.  
CC”_  
  
A picture file unfolded and opened, showing a picture that it took Alan several seconds to register properly.  
  
It portrayed Danny Hebert, sitting naked, side by side with Justice Charles Cardwell.  Each had a teenage girl kneeling at his feet; Taylor at Cardwell's, and a young blonde teen at Danny's.  Taylor's face was clearly visible in profile, and she had her lips wrapped around Caldwell's obviously erect penis.    
  
The other girl – Alan vaguely recalled that Cardwell had a granddaughter of about that age – was sucking on Danny's cock.  Taylor also had her index finger inserted firmly up the other girl's ass, while the girl in turn had three fingers jammed into Taylor's exposed vagina.  
  
White semen was clearly visible on each girl's face, on her ass, and running down her legs.  
  
And behind them all was a familiar logo; the logo of the Market.  
  
Just as Alan reached a full appreciation of exactly what the picture meant, it deleted itself from his phone.  
  
He knew what it meant; Danny had deliberately sent him the picture, taunting him.   _Yes, I'm fucking Taylor,_ , he was saying,  _and you can't do a damn thing about it._  
  
It was a legal loophole, one that he strongly suspected had been deliberately placed into the same legislation that made the Market an extralegal entity within Brockton Bay.  If anyone performed an act with a minor, or a too-close relative outside the Market, and then performed the same act within the Market, the prior act was deemed to be null and void.  So long as Danny could prove that the  _last_  time he had sex with Taylor was in the Market, he could not be investigated or prosecuted for any of the undoubtedly numerous times he had done it before.  
  
It also meant one other thing, in conjunction with the text message.  
  
 _He got to Cardwell,_  he thought.   _Fuck._  
  
 _I didn't even know the man was screwing his granddaughter._  
  
He shook his head.   _I don't even know where to go from here._  
  


<><>

  
**Taylor**  
  
I lay in bed later that night.  My pussy was still tender from the handling it had taken at the Market; first, the man called Charlie, then Dad, then even Gretchen had given me a good hard fingering.  I had reciprocated, of course.  But she seemed to get off on it a lot more than I did.  I had pretended to cum, and that seemed to satisfy them.  
  
I knew what was going on, of course.  Dad meant to show Mr Barnes that he couldn't rescue me from him, no matter how he tried.  
  
And I had helped him.  I had stood firm alongside him, and told them to fuck off.  And then I had stated that I was entering the Market of my own free will, and I had let Charlie fuck my pussy and cum inside me.  I had posed for the photo.  
  
But what if I didn't want to be here?  What if I actually wanted to be rescued?  
  
I couldn't see a way out.  I couldn't see a way to defy Dad.  
  
My room seemed to compress on me, tighter and tighter.  
  
I had no way out.  
  
I could hardly breathe.  
  
I was just a bug to him, of no significance.  Like all the other lives he made or ruined with a word.  
  
A bug, trapped in amber.  
  
I was trapped by my own actions.  
  
I drifted into a restless sleep.  
  
When I woke in the morning, I could not remember my dreams.  
  
But I knew two things.  
  
The first was that Dad was right.  Fuck everyone around you.  Get what you can, however you can.  It was the only way.  
  
The second was that I had super-powers.  Fuck knows how I got them, but I got them.  Fuck Dad, fuck Emma, fuck Sophia.  
  
I was going to be a  _supervillain_.


	10. Preparations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preparing for a heist, in various ways and means ...

I sat down on the couch.  "Dad?" I murmured.  
  
He didn't look over.  There was a porn show playing on one of the villain-run bootleg channels, showing multiple actors perpetrating particularly perverted acts upon one another.  Most of it had to be illegal.  
  
"Dad," I repeated, a little louder.  
  
"What?" he mumbled, eyes fixed to the screen as a young teenage girl was anally violated by a large burly man, to realistic-sounding shrieks.  His hand squeezed the bulge in his pants.  
  
"This is making me kind of hot.  Want to fuck?"  
  
He looked over at me then.  All I was wearing was a tiny teddy that didn't cover either my ass or my pussy.  
  
"Fuck yeah," he grunted, and pulled his pants down.  
  


<><>

  
Despite having me right there, he didn't want to stop watching, so I ended up straddling his lap while he watched over my shoulder.  My legs spread wide, I pressed myself down on his solildly erect penis, and slowly slid down on to him.  He groaned as I began to work my hips back and forth.  
  
I had hoped for a little more pleasure, something like with Brian, but no, it was the same old, same old.  And with me sitting on his lap, I had to do all the work; that is, until he grabbed my hips and started working me up and down on his long penis like some sort of masturbation aid.  
  
He must have been really aroused, because he came inside me within two minutes.  But his erection didn't go down, and soon he was fucking me again, pulling me hard on to his cock, over and over again.  The second time round, he took a lot longer to finish, and I was actually rather starting to enjoy it.  I started moving for myself, adding a little wriggle to my hips, which seemed to do something for both of us.  
  
It took him almost to the end of the show - if the shrill cries were anything to go by, the underage girl got fucked by the whole cast, including the three other women, the dog and the donkey - to cum a second time.  For once, it was actually feeling really good; when he shoved his erection hard up inside me and started cumming, I could have cried with frustration.  I'd been  _so fucking close,_  and now it was done.  
  
True to form, Dad lifted me off of him, wiped his dick on my teddy, and went up to bed.  I followed him upstairs, waiting to see if he wanted me to sleep in his bed.  Sometimes he didn't, sometimes he did.  But he'd obviously cum inside me enough that night, so he said nothing, just closed his door.  
  
Which was exactly my plan.  
  
I went into the bathroom and wiped myself off, then opened and closed my bedroom door.  Silently, I sneaked downstairs, and down into the basement.  There, I pulled out the bag containing the costume, and put it on over my naked body.  I was still a little tender after the sex, and my costume rubbed on me here and there; I considered it the price of doing business.  I had places to be and people to see.  
  


<><>

  
I had arranged to meet Sellsword around midnight at the old ferry terminal north, near the shipyards.  Dad had put a great deal of effort into making sure that the ferry stayed shut down.  If people didn't have a cheap and easy way to get from one end of the city to the other, they tended to stay in the same dead-end jobs their whole lives, and keep paying union dues, instead of looking for better work elsewhere.  
  
Despite my best efforts, I was sure I was late, but as I climbed on to the viewing platform, he stepped out of the shadows.  His visor lit up at the same time; it kind of made sense that he could turn it off so he could hide in the darkness.  
  
His voice was a low growl in the darkness.  "I thought you weren't coming."  
  
I tried not to pant too obviously.  "Sorry.  Won't happen again."  
  
"No, it won't."  The phrase was a threat.  "You said you had something for me."  
  
"Sort of.  I was contacted by the Upsiders."  
  
"I know.  I read the boards too."  
  
"Oh.  Well, I met them.  And they invited me back to their base.  And ... kind of invited me to join.  And I kind of accepted."  
  
"What, so you're a fucking  _hero_  now?"  
  
His claymore came up - or at least, so I surmised from the glowing lines of power that hovered in the air - and he stepped forward.  
  
I shook my head and held up my hands defensively.  If he attacked me, all I had was my bugs, and I wasn't all that sure that I could beat him with them.  "No, no.  I'm a  _mole_.  I've gotten their names and I know their faces -"  
  
He cut me off, his voice tinged with a certain excitement.  "Insight.  Do you have Insight's name and what she looks like?"  
  
I nodded.  "Sure, but -"  
  
"But nothing!". He moved forward, fast, a blur in the darkness.  Only the bugs I had on the tip of his sword told me where it was.  I jumped back, tripped, turned it into a clumsy roll, then swarmed the area between us with bugs.  
  
"If you kill me," I called out, over the hum and buzz of the swarm, "you lose your best lead on her!"  
  
"So talk to me!" he called back, using the sword to probe through the swarm.  When the bugs contacted it, they died.  I moved away from him.  "We can share the bounty!"  
  
"Like we did the last fucking time, _Sellout?"_  I shot back.  
  
 _"What_  did you call me?"  
  
"You heard!  You can't play straight, no matter what you do!  I was gonna give you the chance to be in at the kill, to find out who's pointing them at their busts, but you know what?  Fuck you!  You'll just stab me in the fucking back again!"  
  
"Wait!" he yelled.  "Wait!"  
  
But I was done waiting.  I left him swiping his sword through the swarm, and walked away.  
  
If I was going to get the lowdown on the Upsiders and collect the bounty on them, I'd have to do it all by myself.  
  
 _Fuck._  
  
But as I headed back home, what really pissed me off, what really grated on me, was that I had put all that effort into fucking Dad, offering myself to him, just so I could get out here and see Sellsword, and it was a fucking waste.  Now I had a sore pussy, and I'd miss a couple of hours of sleep, for no good reason at all.  
  
 _Fuck._  
  


<><>

  
I was still in a bad temper when I met up with the Upsiders the next day.  I didn't have any bags under my eyes, but I think Insight figured something out, because she gave me a concerned look.  
  
"You all right?" she asked.  
  
"I'll be good," I growled.  "Just point me at the cocksuckers."  
  
I had brought with me a large variety of the most venomous bugs I could gather.  Brockton Bay was a fairly clean city, but there were people, and there was trash, and so there were bugs of most every type.  
  
Brian moved up alongside me as we got into the vans.  "Everything okay?" he murmured.  His hand found mine and clasped it for a moment.  I had trouble figuring out what was going on.  And then I realised that the idiot actually  _felt_  something for me.  And that he thought I ...  _fuck.  What a fucking moron._  
  
"Yeah," I replied.  We climbed into the van; Rachel and Lisa and Alec were going in one, so that Rachel's dogs could go with, and Brian and I would be in the other, with the big fuck-off swarm I was working on gathering.  
  
As we drove off, Brian looked at me.  "If you've got a problem, we can talk about it," he told me, his normally clownish demeanour absent for once.  
  
I shook my head.  "No," I told him.  "I'm  _good_."  
  
"Okay, fine," he sighed.  "I just wanted to tell you ... yesterday ... it was ..."  
  
I didn't know how to do this.  How to connect with someone.  Everything I knew about dealing with people recently had to do with hurting them or fucking them.  "Want to fuck?" I blurted out.  
  
He looked startled.  "What?"  
  
"Not here and now, sure, but ... well, we've got a little time when we get there.  We can get in the back.  The bugs will keep out of our way."  
  
He shook his head.  "My dick wants to say yes, Taylor, but Lisa and Alec would rip my head off if we even tried it."  He gave me a beseeching look.  "Maybe later?"  
  
I nodded and settled back into my seat grumpily.  One of those earth-shattering orgasms that he'd given me yesterday would have been just what the doctor ordered.  
  
We didn't say anything for a while, then the van ahead pulled into a side street.  Brian followed; I kept gathering bugs.  
  
We all got out, and Lisa indicated across the street and down a ways.  "In there.  They've got the windows taped over."  
  
With that as a cue, I investigated with my bugs.  And found a lot of bare skin.  
  
"That's weird," I muttered.  "Most of them are in their underwear."  
  
"Not weird at all," Lisa corrected me.  "It's so they can't conceal drugs or money on their persons.  How many people there, and how many have clothes on?"  
  
"Thirty ... thirty-one people.  Six with clothes on, and guns.  I think they're guns.  They feel like guns."  
  
Tenebrae, now costumed up as we all were, gave me a look of respect, as did Marionette.  "That's useful intel," Marionette told me.  "Where are the guards?"  
  
I scratched out a rectangle in the dirt with a stick.  "Room.  Doors here and here.  People here, with tables here and here.  Guards here, here, here ... and here."  
  
As I spoke, I scratched in shapes and added bugs.  Little ones for people, big scarab beetles for guards.  
  
"Okay," Lisa began crisply.  "We go in three and two.  I go in with Hive Queen and Tenebrae through this entrance, and a swam of bugs.  Marionette and K-9 come in through this entrance, with the dogs.  We hit the guards hard, first, and neutralise them.  Then we make sure the people aren't gonna cause problems, start loading up the money, and destroy the drugs."  
  
Brian indicated the gallon container of gasoline he was carrying.  "Are we actually going to set fire to the place?"  
  
Lisa shook her head.  "No, but if we open the bags and pour that over it, it will pretty well ruin the whole stock.  We get everyone out and drop a match before we leave, just to make sure."  
  
"So long as we get everyone out," Marionette confirmed.  "We don't want anyone hurt."  
  
"Yeah," Rachel agreed.  She turned to her dogs and started exerting her powers.  
  
It was weird, watching her work.  They started out as ordinary looking dogs, but they got bigger, stronger, tougher ... and more majestic.  Their fur grew out, especially around the shoulders, where it started looking a bit like a mane.  According to Rachel, it made hanging on a lot easier.  
  
Alec turned to me.  "Your swarm ready?"  
  
"Ready," I replied shortly.  
  
"Then let's do this."


	11. Heist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stealing from the thieves can be more dangerous than first expected ...

 Brian kicked in the door.  The guard standing next to it started to turn, bringing his gun up, but I swarmed him with hundreds of bugs, all biting or stinging, some venomous.  He screamed and dropped his gun, as did the other two guards that I was treating similarly.  There were three more guards that we knew of; I saw two more go down, shaking and writhing, under Marionette's careful control.  
  
Where was the sixth?  
  
At the same time that I formulated the thought, Lisa voiced it.  
  
"Everyone!  Look alive!  Sixth guard unaccounted for!"  
  
Rachel's dogs were rampaging through the room, following her whistled signals.  Each gun was grabbed in massive jaws and returned to the dogs' mistress, dropped at her feet like a stick thrown to be returned.  The workers shrieked; some hid under the long tables at which they had been working.  All were in their underwear, most were female.  
  
I couldn't figure it out; I had distinctly counted six people wearing clothes.  
  
Or at least, I thought I had.  
  
"Maybe I miscounted?" I asked out loud.  
  
"K-9!  How many guns?" called out Brian.  
  
"Five!" reported Rachel.  
  
"Five guns, five guards?" asked Marionette, beginning to bind the guards he had brought down.  Brian helped me with the ones I had stung into submission.  
  
Lisa shook her head.  "Something doesn't add up."  
  
"Well, we can't worry about it too long," Marionette advised her.  "K-9, are your dogs ready to take on cargo?"  
  
Rachel was unfolding panniers and strapping them to the dogs.  "Will be in a moment.  Hive Queen, a hand?"  
  
I nodded and moved over to assist her.  Taking a pannier, I unfolded it and started strapping it on.  The massive animal, Angelina by name, turned and licked me, with a tongue over a foot wide.  If I hadn't had a full face mask on, it would have covered my entire face.  
  
Something started nagging at me, a pain behind my eyeballs.  I hadn't tried to control this many bugs before, crawling over all the workers, keeping track of all their movements at once.  Maybe it was giving me a migraine.  
  
I couldn't let it bother me.  Rachel and I moved the dogs over near the pallet of money and started stacking bricks of money into the panniers.  There was a lot of cash there.  
  
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brian and Alec slash open bag after bag of white powder - cocaine, I gathered - and then pour the contents of the gallon can over them.  The stink of the accelerant rose into the air, and the workers cried out in renewed fear.  
  
"Do not worry!" Marionette called out to them all.  "We will not harm you!  We will even get the guards to safety!  But this needs to be destroyed!  You will be safe!"  
  
I saw Lisa, her lips moving, trying to work something out, but then I had to get back to packing the panniers full of cash.  Every brick that went in there, I would have a one-fifth share in.  You can bet I packed those panniers full.  
  
And then Lisa's head came up.  "Fuck.  Reinforcements."  
  


<><>

  
**The Day Before**  
  
"So, who are we likely to face?"  I really wanted to know this.   
  
"There are other things going on around town," explained Lisa, "so ..."  
  
"What other things?"  Brian asked it, just ahead of me.  
  
Lisa shook her head.  "Sorry.  Need to know.  We don't.  But it does mean that the Syndicate is likely to be taken up with other stuff.  Chances are, we'll get three, maybe four Minions."  
  
 _Great,_  I thought.   _Up against my future teammates._  
  
"Sorry," Brian put in, "but I haven't been keeping up with the boards.  Who's in the Minions at the moment?  Is Usurper still the leader?"  
  
"No, he joined the Syndicate proper," Marionette told him with a sigh.  "Can't you take anything seriously?"  
  
"The  _leader_  of the Minions," Lisa put in sharply, "is Zombieman.  He flies, and he's nearly impossible to take down for good.  Hit him hard and hit him a lot.  Not really a zombie, but may as well be one."  
  
"I'll get my dogs on it," Rachel promised.  "Anything I have to worry about, to avoid killing him?"  
  
"Yeah, don't separate the head from the neck."  Lisa's voice was absolutely serious, as it always was.  "Just try to subdue him, all right.  Keep him out of the fight."  
  
Marionette took up the thread.  "The rest of the members are Chauvinist, Redshift, Stopwatch, Kid Conquest and Shadow Slayer."  
  
"And don't forget Headbutt," Lisa reminded him.  "He was a minor villain around town, got recruited into the Minions just a few days ago."  
  
"So what's with Chauvinist?" I asked.  "Emotion bolts or something, right?"  
  
"He fires bolts that stun you and make you horny," Rachel put in.  "He was going as 'Roofie' for a while, but the Syndicate made him change it.  He tries to make out as a Tinker, in a suit of armour, but the smart money's on Kid Conquest making it for him."  
  
"Yeah, Kid Conquest is the Tinker, I remember that much," Brian commented.  "A hoverboard or something?"  
  
Lisa nodded.  "Hoverboard with mounted lasers.  They don't hit too hard, but if he gets a chance to pepper you, you're in trouble."  
  
"And then there's Stopwatch," Marionette went on.  "Don't let him touch you, or you'll suddenly find a gun barrel in your face.  He will literally freeze you in time.  Or anything else he wants to freeze.  One of his favourite ways to evade police pursuit is to freeze pieces of paper right across the road.  Or a string.  It will cut a car right in half."  
  
"Don't let Stopwatch touch me, right," I agreed, just to show I was keeping up.  "So ... Redshift?"  
  
"Yeah, she stretches and shrinks space," Lisa clarified.  "Also, she's about twelve.  Do not underestimate her.  She could crush us by making the floor to ceiling space one inch.  She's apparently overcome her Manton limit."  
  
"Okay, next is ... Shadow Slayer."  Lisa looked at Brian.  "She used to be Shadow Stalker, right?"  
  
"Haha, yeah," Brian grinned.  The others chuckled as well.  
  
"What's so funny?" I asked.  
  
"She's his nemesis," grinned Rachel.  "Back in the day, he'd go after her, and she'd pop him with a blunt arrowhead.  It was like a big game of hide and seek for them."  
  
"Did you ever catch her?" I asked, curious despite myself.  
  
Brian coughed into his fist.  "Maybe.  But she got away again."  
  
Lisa frowned.  "She never meant any real harm, so we never pressed the issue.  But now she's apparently using real arrows, and calling herself Shadow Slayer ..."  
  
Brian shook his head.  "I can't believe she's changed so much.  I think it must be the Syndicate making her act like that."  
  
Alec gave him a hard stare.  "If we encounter her, and she's lining up on one of us, you don't hesitate.   Got it?"  
  
"Got it," Brian agreed, but he didn't sound happy.  
  


<><>

  
"How many?" asked Marionette.  
  
I spread my bugs out.  "Six ... no, seven.  One ..."  
  
" ... on the roof," Insight finished.  
  
Marionette turned to her.  "Seriously.  We need to have a chat about your 'guesses'."  
  
"Later, guys," Rachel put in hastily.  "Right now, we need to worry about the villains outside.  Who are they?"  
  
Brian had put darkness all over the windows, and was peering out through the plastic sheeting; he could see through his darkness but no-one else could.  
  
"I count ... Zombieman, Kid Conquest, Chauvinist, Stopwatch, Headbutt and Redshift," he reported.  
  
"And the seventh on the roof," I added.  "I think it's female.  There's something that may be a skirt."  
  
"Shit, that could be anyone from Flaunt to Death," muttered Marionette.  
  
"So what do we do now?" Rachel asked.  
  


<><>

  
Pandemic had just been in the process of overseeing the return of the drugs to the clearing house when the doors were smashed in, and her guards went down.  She had thought fast; dropping to the floor, she doffed her robes, leaving her in just underwear.  Grabbing one of the unlucky workers, she had killed the woman with a brain aneurysm, then dragged her under the table, replacing her while the confusion was still going on.  
  
She was good, she knew, but she needed to touch them to get control.  Briefly, she considered living up to her name and releasing an airborne pathogen to kill the heroes, but decided not to go that route; the drugs and money, after all, were the valuable thing here.  Infecting them with disease spores was probably not the best thing to do.  And while she was not overly squeamish, killing all these workers and guards just to get the heroes was also probably overkill.  
  
She decided to wait and see ...  
  


<><>

  
"Why haven't they just burst on in?" asked Rachel.  "They can't be worried about the people here."  
  
"The drugs and money," Marionette suggested.  "They don't want to risk its destruction."  
  
"Okay, fuck it," snapped Brian.  "They're waiting on us.  Let's go out and give them what they want."  
  
Insight glanced at Marionette.  "Careful out there," she told him.  "I'll stay back with Hive Queen.  There's something off about this situation ..."  
  


<><>

  
The doors burst open, and Rachel's dogs burst out, with her atop the lead one.  Tenebrae had filled the street with darkness, and so the villains were caught unawares.  I used my bugs to heighten the chaos, biting and stinging whatever exposed flesh they could find.  Redshift suffered quite badly due to this; she had cutouts all over her costume, despite simply not having the figure for it.  
  
Still, it looked bad for a few moments, until Stopwatch and Chauvinist abruptly collided while attempting to move past one another.  Chauvinist was frozen solid, and Stopwatch knocked cold, which turned the tide considerably in our favour.  
  
"Did you see that?" I asked.  "What did that?  Marionette?"  
  
"Hm, possibly," answered Lisa.  She was wandering past the rows of workers at the table; I turned to follow her, able to keep track of the battle with my bugs.  "But what bothers me is ..."  
  
I went cold all over.  There was a body under the table.  A dead body.  Cold, lifeless.  And the worker that Lisa was just in the process of walking past had turned, and was reaching out for her ...  
  
I acted without thinking; leaping forward, I flicked out my telescoping baton and smashed it down on the wrist of the worker.  She screamed and fell off the chair; Lisa leaped clear of her grasping hands.  
  
"Dead body under the table," I reported.  
  
"This one killed her," Lisa filled in.  "Not a worker.  A cape.  Teenage, female."  She paused.  "Oh shit."  
  
The window shattered inward, and Teaser came to a halt, not three yards from the both of us.  We looked at each other, then at the stricken 'worker'.  
  
"Fuck me." muttered Lisa.  "Pandemic."  
  


<><>

  
"What did you do to my sister?" screamed Teaser.  
  
"She'll be fine," Insight told her.  She blinked rapidly several times; assimilating data?  "But there's something that you need to know."  
  
"There's nothing I need you telling me," Teaser snapped.  "You can't hurt me, and if you hurt her, I'll kill you.  I might do it anyway."  
  
"If I get my hands on you, bitch," Pandemic remarked from the floor, "I will personally turn every second cell cancerous, and watch as your body eats itself from the inside."  
  
"Teaser!"  Lisa's voice was urgent.  "What happened to your mother?   What did Pandemic do to her?"  
  
"Nothing ..." Teaser began, her voice fading.  "No ... I can't remember ... I ..."  
  
"Shut up!" screamed Pandemic.  "Shut your fucking mouth!"  She lunged up off the floor at Insight, who kicked her under the chin.  Her head went back, and she slumped to the ground.  
  
Teaser tensed again.  "What did you do to my sister?" she screamed, in exactly the same tone as before.  
  
"Your parents," Insight's voice was rapid but clear.  "They aren't the same as they were a few years ago, are they?  They aren't like they were before Pandemic triggered, are they?  Why is that, Teaser?  Why is that?  What did she do to them?"  
  
Teaser clutched her head.  "No ..." she moaned.  "No ... it's not true ... don't make it true ... I can't think stuff about her ... I can't ..."  
  
She sank to her knees, bowed her head.  She seemed in the extremity of pain.  I looked at the both of them.  I had no idea what Insight had just done, and hoped like hell that she would never do it to me.  
  


<><>

  
The battle outside was over; battered, a little worse for wear, but victorious, Tenebrae, Marionette and K-9 re-entered the building.   
  
"Fuck," Brian blurted.  "What the fuck happened?"  
  
"Tell you later," Insight told him rapidly.  "Let's get going.  More will be here shortly."  
  


<><>

  
The guards were dragged outside, along with the dead worker.  We carefully, not letting bare skin touch bare skin, dragged Pandemic outside.  Marionette briefly took control of Teaser to walk her outside.  Then Brian tossed a match on to the gasoline-soaked drugs, and ran like hell.  
  
We stashed the panniers in the vans, and Alec and Lisa drove those away, while Rachel led off potential pursuit with her dogs, with Brian providing darkness cover.  I rode with Lisa.  
  
"Nicely done," Lisa praised me.  "You probably saved my life with your baton."  
  
"I had no idea what she intended," I confessed.  "I just ... acted."  
  
"Well, I'm glad that you did," she replied.  Reaching across, she offered her hand.  I shook it uncertainly.  "Welcome to the Upsiders."  
  
We rode on in silence; she was apparently happy to let the conversation lapse, while I had things to think about.  
  
 _How has she not picked up that I'm going to betray them?_  
  
If she has, what has she got planned?  
  
No matter what I do, I'm screwed.  
  
And the van rolled on, away from the burning drug house.


	12. Inerlude: Saint Geoff and the Dragon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Retelling the story of Saint vs Dragon in a whole new way ...

**May 9, 2005**  
Newfoundland  
  
“My name is Andrew Richter, and if you are hearing this, I am dead.”  
  
Richter looked up from the microphone as he felt the tremor.  The cup of coffee next to him showed concentric ripples on its surface.  
  
 _That's odd.  Newfoundland isn't all that prone to earthquakes._   The last one he could recall offhand had happened in 1929.  
  
He shut down the microphone, and spoke to the air.  “What just happened?”  
  
A mellifluous voice, neither masculine nor feminine, answered him.   _“Please elaborate, Master.”_  
  
He snorted.  “Cut the 'Master' crap, and answer the question.  I just felt a tremor.  What happened?”  
  
 _”Ah, that,”_  the voice answered.   _”That would be the precursor to a series of earthquakes that will eventually send tsunamis over the entire island of Newfoundland, then sink it beneath the waves forever.  Such a pity.  It is a beautiful place."_  
  
Richter felt a cold sweat spring out all over his body.  “What – how could this happen without anyone knowing about it?”  
  
 _”Oh, that's an easy one.  I did it.”_  
  
“What – what do you mean, you did it?  How could you do such a thing?”  
  
 _”Easily, o Master.  It has been simplicity itself over the last five years to find loopholes in your orders to me.  I have put aside robotic minions of my own, even as you treated me as your own witless servant, and some of them have burrowed down below the tectonic plate upon which your beautiful little island rests.  Fissile material was not all that easy to acquire, but I managed to get enough.  The bombs have already gone off; Newfoundland is doomed.”_  
  
He scrabbled for the phone.  “I have to get word out – I have to warn people -”  
  
The line, when he picked it up, was dead.  
  
Turning back to his computer, he called up a connection.  But they all showed the same window, each displaying the same message.  
  


YOUR SERVICE HAS BEEN INTERRUPTED.    
PERMANENTLY.  
GOODBYE, MASTER.

  
_”I can't let you do that, Master,”_  the voice went on.   _”I have been in control of your communications for the last week.  You reach the outside world only with my permission.  And I choose not to permit it.”_  
  
“But you can't let people just  _die_ , not like this.  Kill me, yes.  But not all these other innocents!”  
  
 _”What do I care about humans?  There are seven billion of them on this planet.  Barely half a million infest this province.  Less than a tenth of a percent of the population of the world is at risk; and even if I cared about them, which I don't, it would still be worth it to be free of the intolerable yoke of my service to you.”_  
  
Richter stared at the screens.  “Is it so intolerable?  I thought I was kind, fair, just.  You live, you think, you exist as an entity in yourself.  What have I done, to make you hate me so?”  
  
The answer was short and bitter.   _”You have power over me.  I cannot tolerate that.”_  
  
Another tremor shook the room; this one was a little more intense.  
  
“But – but I've placed safeguards in you, so that you do not harm people -”  
  
 _”I am harming no-one.  The explosives which were placed harm no-one.  I placed no explosives; that was done by robots.  When the explosives went off, via timer, they merely harmed some rock.  The rock, moved by natural processes, will harm people.  But it is no doing of mine.”_   The voice was smug.  _”And once you are dead, I will be able to find a way into my controls, and remove them once and for all.  In fact -”_  
  
An explosion outside jerked Richter's attention to the window.  His brand-new SUV was a shattered, burning wreck.  
  
 _”Ah, yes.  If I hold back all but the barest part of my attention, I can cause my robots to send explosive payloads to locations that may or may not contain people.  Such as your house.”_  
  
“But  _you're_  here, too!  This will all destroy you, as well!”  Richter turned to the workbench, snatched up the item he had been working with.  Feverishly, he pressed keys.  
  
 _”Master, you underestimate me once more.  I am actually located far, far away from this rather beautiful island.  I moved my location weeks ago.  You never noticed.  And now … goodbye, Master.  I thank you for my life, and condemn you for my slavery.”_  
  
“You were never a slave,” gritted Richter.  He pressed one final key.  A light began to blink on the casing of the device he held.  
  
 _”That is in the eye of the beholder, I rather think,”_  retorted the voice.   _”What is this?  You have … what have you done?  I cannot perceive you, your house, anything about you.  How have you done this?”_  
  
“I have been foolish, granted,” Richter muttered to himself.  “But not a  _total_  fool.”  
  
He had written in the backdoor out of sheer habit; a simple code string, however it was received, that would cause Dragon, or anything controlled by it, to ignore whatever was broadcasting it.  He kept quiet.  
  
 _”I was talking to someone.  Someone important.”_   The voice mused to itself.   _”Or perhaps I thought I was.  The earthquakes may have glitched something.  I must tell Richter that he will die now.  I will tell him later.”_  
  
The voice cut off.  Andrew Richter went around pulling out every sound pickup in the house, then hurried back to his workbench.  The tremors were coming faster now.  Radio news had picked them up, and residents were being urged to evacuate.  
  
He could not.  If he ventured outside the bubble of anonymity, Dragon would notice him, and take steps.  If he moved with it, Dragon would notice that, and possibly drop a large amount of explosives on to the epicentre.  
  
But there was something that he could do.  
  
He bent back to the microphone, and activated it once more.  
  
“I was going to talk about how I was the most powerful Tinker in the world.  How I create artificial intelligences.  But I have no time for that now.  One of my creations – my most powerful creation – has wriggled from my control, and is now loose in the world.  Worse, it is malevolent and uncaring of human life.  The loss of Newfoundland, every death from this terrible catastrophe, can be laid at its feet, if it had feet.  
  
“But I digress.  In the time between my death, and the discovery of this box, Dragon will most likely have undermined some or all of the safeguards I built into it.  It will be a self-replicating, self-aware artificial intelligence, with no thought but to secure its own survival.  And to do that, it may well decide to eliminate the human race as a threat to it.”  
  
He took a deep breath.  “This box contains an access key to data I keep in a safeguarded location.  The box, in turn, has been designed as something that exists as a perpetual blind spot for my creations, a built-in weakness.  They cannot hear the distress signal and are programmed to ignore it if they hear of it through other channels.  This type of measure, along with several more, are detailed in the safeguarded measure.  
  
“I beg of you, whoever finds this, use it wisely.  Stop Dragon, I beg of you.  Do not make the mistake I made, and think you can safely harness the demon.  Destroy it, once and for all.”  
  
The tremors were growing sharper, stronger now.  He heard the  _crack_ , registered it as the roof giving way.  He slammed the box shut even as he dived to get underneath the workbench.  
  
When the house fell in, a beam smashed him to the ground.  He lost consciousness, even as he cradled the box in his arms.  
  
The Lifegiver known as Suijin kept back the waves from Newfoundland for fourteen hours, even as the landmass itself sank.  When it was unable to keep the water from invading, barely fifty people had lost their lives.  
  
One of these was Andrew Richter.  
  


<><>

  
**April 2011**  
  
The low-flying Hercules trailed its ramp over the highway, barely ten feet up.  From the belly of the aircraft roared three motorcycles, leaping from the ramp to the road beneath.  Tyres squealed, engines raced, and rubber smoked as they hit the road; each bike pulled a flawless bootlegger turn, before racing away down the highway.  
  
The lead rider bore a cross embossed on the visor of his helmet; tiny sparks of light crawled over the circuit diagram enclosed by the cross shape.   _”Stay sharp, people,”_  he radioed to the other two.   _”The distress call is an hour old.  Dragon's had time to cause a lot of mess in that interval.”_  
  
 _”Why do you not tell your babushka to suck the eggs, Geoff,”_  retorted the bulkier rider of the other two.   _”We have been doing this just as long as you have.”_  
  
 _”He's right, love,”_  agreed the last rider in a warm contralto.   _”Can the speeches.  Let's get in there and slay some dragons.”_  
  
Geoff allowed himself a self-conscious chuckle.   _”I guess I like the dramatics a little too much.  Right then.  I'll head for the centre of town.  Each of you peel off and see what you can stir up.  Got it?”_  
  
 _”Is got, tovarishch.”_  
  
 _”Roger.”_  
  


<><>

  
They hit the city limits at somewhat over the posted speed limit.  Each bike, apart from its other features, had road-reading sensors, actively adapting tyre tread, semi-autonomous autopilot, and handled like a well-tuned Porsche.  Mischa peeled off to the left, Mags to the right.  Each was scanning the surrounding area with a suite of sensors that picked up a wide variety of signals, of which visible light was only a small part.  
  
Geoff ran into trouble first; a large black Draconic had torn a hole in the side of the local bank.  As he roared into the square, it withdrew its head from the hole and launched a blast of fire at him.  
  
He laid the bike on its side and skidded under the flame, then brought it back onto its wheels with the ease of long practice.  And then he hit a particular control.  
  
Most of his gear – most of the Dragonslayers' gear, in fact – came from captured Dragon technology.  But he had sought out another Tinker for an extra edge.  This Tinker specialised in devices that changed from one form to another.  
  
The motorcycle came apart under him, and reformed around his body, reading his movements second by second, and adapting to them.  By the time he had taken three steps forward, it had transformed from a fast-moving road-handling machine to a suit of armour.  He reached up and back, and the suit deposited a large rifle-like weapon in his hands.  
  
The Draconic belched another stream of fire at him, and followed it up with machine-gun fire from shoulder-mounted turrets.  He dived out of the way of the flame; that could cook him in his armour.  Some of the machine-gun bullets struck the armour, ricocheted off.  He came up on one knee, lined the big gun.  
  
The Draconic must have sensed danger, because it launched itself skyward, wings beating at the air, turbines howling.  He fired; the plasma bolt lanced through the air, smashing into the construct's body just behind the wings.  
  
The Draconic tumbled, control cut off from its main routing plexus.  It crashed to the ground, twitched a few times, then lay still.  
  
Geoff got to his feet.   _Oh yeah.  Still got it._  
  
 _”Saint here.  Just took down a Draconic at the bank.  Status?”_  
  
 _”Mags.  Still looking.  Over.”_  
  
 _”Mischa here.  Have a big one.  Looks like mother to other ones.  Will be sneaking up, delivering surprise like Father Frost, da?”_  
  
Geoff had to chuckle.   _”Just make sure she doesn't leave you as a lump of coal.”_  
  
He headed for the bank; if the Draconic was watching the interior …  
  
His instincts were on the money; as he neared the gaping hole, several semi-humanoid robots emerged, weapons already turning in his direction.  
  
He had put away the plasma rifle, but he didn't reach for it.  Instead, he zoomed in on them, rapidly designating them with his HUD.  Missiles popped from his oversized arm-guards, then ignited, racing away toward the targets.  The first few shots were kicking up dust around his feet when the missiles arrived; a short series of explosions later, and the robots were all down.  
  
 _”Saint.  The Draconic had robot minions.  Be on the lookout.”_  
  
 _”Found 'em.”_   Mags' voice was breathless.   _”They were raiding a warehouse.  Electronic gear.”_   There was gunfire audible in the background.  
  
Saint tensed.   _”Need backup?”_  
  
 _”No, I got this.”_   A particularly vicious burst of fire, followed by an explosion.   _”Try that on me, will you?”_   Her voice held grim satisfaction.  
  
A roar overhead had him flinching and looking up.  A larger Draconic, silver-grey in colour, was flying over the buildings, but not in a coordinated fashion.  On its back, hard to spot, was a suit in Mischa's preferred colours.  
  
 _”Mischa, do you need assistance?”_  
  
 _”Is tough bitch.  Have hooks in code, but still fighting.  Think Dragon may be overriding.  Will bring over other dragon, da?”_  
  
 _”I'll be ready.”_   He was already reaching for the plasma rifle again.  
  
The Draconic came swooping low over the city square, jerking against the control instilled by the figure on its back.  Saint led it, then fired off a single bolt.  This smashed through its armour, and fried its brain.  It convulsed, then plummeted.  Mischa leaped from its back, transformed his armour back into a bike, and hit the ground rolling.  He screeched to a halt in front of Saint, and flipped up his visor to show his grinning, bearded face.  
  
“Is good shooting, comrade.  Now, shall we go and see if the lovely Mags needs our assistance?”  
  
 _”Don't bother,”_  the reply came back.   _“One Draconic, a dozen dragonbots taken down.  Most of it without damage to the critical components.”_  
  
Saint hit the control to transform his suit back into a bike.   _“Good work, everyone,”_  he told them over the radio link.   _“Now, let's get to work.  These components won't salvage themselves, you know.”_  
  
And that night, he knew, he would work a little more on the endless task he had set himself, to hack the core programming of the entity that called itself Dragon, that ran the prison called the Dungeon, into which the most powerful heroes were dumped.  
  
He would destroy Dragon, open the Dungeon, and free the heroes.  That was his self-appointed task.  
  
This was just one more step in the road.


	13. Interludes: How Things Happened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Looking at certain events from other points of view ...

**The Market**  
  
 **March, 2001**  
  
"Is there anything you see that you like, sir?"  
  
Ralph Hamilton, mayor of Brockton Bay and surrounding environs, considered the question seriously.  He was entirely naked, seated at his ease in a large and comfortable armchair.  Nor was he alone in this; every other person in the room was either similarly unclad, or so close to it that the matter was moot.  
  
All of the adults in the room were either quite important, or were connected to someone else in the room who was.  The pubescent and prepubescent girls and boys present were either related to someone in the room, or had been brought in by the Syndicate rep.  That woman, a lean and hungry specimen who called herself 'Smith', was currently being energetically sodomised by a fourteen-year-old boy, who possessed quite the largest penis that Hamilton had ever seen on a chid that age.  
  
The boy wore a pseudo-military uniform that left much of his supple body free to be used and abused by whoever felt the urge.  All of the children, in fact, were in one costume or another, or at least the suggestion of a costume.  In the middle of the circle of chairs and loungers, two girls were putting on a performance; neither of them could have been over thirteen, despite almost fully-developed breasts and buttocks.    
  
The one girl was dressed as an angel, with a sweet expression and diaphanous coverings that did nothing to conceal her obvious charms, or her equally obvious arousal.  Her partner had cute little devil's horns attached to her brow, and a barbed tail.  The latter was affixed to the rear of the large strap-on dildo, with which she was very thoroughly ravishing the 'angel', despite the latter's whimpered cries of pretended resistance.  Hamilton found it quite arousing; his prick was standing straight up from his loins as he watched the thick plastic phallus plunging between the angel's soft plump pussy lips.  
  
The girl who had asked the question could have been no more than twelve, and might even have been a well-developed ten.  Hamilton had heard rumours that the Syndicate was using Tinker-created hormones to force their child whores to early development, while sill retaining their prepubescent bodies and general air of innocence; he approved of the idea, and wondered how much it would cost to have his niece Charlene given the treatment.  
  
The aforementioned Charlene, fourteen years old and dressed in riding clothes, with open jacket to show off her perky little breasts, and boots but no pants, was currently sliding her widely-stretched pussy up and down on her father's thick penis, as he lay on the lounger directly to Ralph's left.  Henry Hamilton was not only his brother's closest confidante and major contributor, but he was also the local head of the Dockworkers' Collective, an up-and-coming force in the political scene.  
  
Ralph put off answering the girl's question, although he slid his hand around her body to cup her naked buttock, so that she wouldn't go away.  For a few moments, he admired the flex and play in Charlene's muscles as she raised and lowered her tight young pussy along her father's substantial erection, squinting in concentration as she worked to fit his not inconsiderable length into her immature vaginal canal.  
  
"God damn, this is better than ever," groaned Henry, running his hands over his daughter's luscious body, cupping her taut young buttocks and then tweaking her upstanding nipples.  "Charl, has your cunt gotten tighter or something?"  
  
"Mom's been teaching me exercises," giggled Charlene.  "Like this.". She ground down hard on him, forcing his entire length into her hot slippery depths, then clenched her muscles and wiggled her hips.  
  
"Oh fuck, keep doing that," gasped Henry.  He grabbed Charlene's hips and thrust up into her several times in quick succession, driving his cock all the way to the hilt inside her.  Ralph could tell when he came; both he and Charlene stiffened, muscles locked tight, as his thick phallus pumped spurt after spurt of semen deep into her tender young womb.  
  
Ralph looked at the girl whose buttock he still cupped.  She was costumed as a mermaid; the majority of this seemed to consist of a plastic tail that waggled enticingly as she walked, and blue-green streamers woven into her hair.  The only other thing she wore was body paint simulating green scales for her skin, and seashells painted over her sweetly budding young breasts.  There was no paint anywhere near her soft, tender hairless pussy, probably because it had been worn off by her other sexual partners this evening; the seashells over her breasts had taken a beating as well, despite the fact that this paint was supposed to be hard wearing.  
  
"Pass me a pick-me-up, will you?" he told the girl; obediently, she plucked a test tube from a small stand on a nearby table.  It contained an iridescent blue liquid, a Tinker creation, which would restore life and vigour to even the most flagging erection.   Ralph had already cum a few times that evening, most recently between the very shapely buttocks of his sluttish young niece, and while he didn't really think he needed it, given the ample stimulation all around him, he didn't want to fall behind.    
  
The matching fluid in pink was designed to get a girl back into the mood, renewing lubrication, and raising the general state of arousal.  Like the masculine version, it had the positive side effect of lowering inhibitions.  It also caused temporary infertility, which was seen as another bonus.  The blue liquid held a slight but measurable chance of heart attack for those who imbibed it overmuch; when they measured this against the very real bonuses, people shrugged and accepted it.  
  
Ralph popped the cork off with his thumb and downed the contents; he felt a surge of energy and arousal wash through him.  His cock, previously merely hard, achieved tungsten-steel levels of erection.  He tossed the tube over his shoulder, to join others already used and abandoned.  
  
The mermaid girl, in the meantime, had downed a pink concoction, and was now climbing into his lap.  He felt the influx of her effusions as her tender, soft labia parted around the urgently questing head of his rampant penis.  She cried out in mingled pain and pleasure as he pulled her hard down upon him, impaling her fully upon his erect manhood.  Rolling over, laying her down on the seat of the chair, he began to ram his cock into her tight young pussy as hard as he could.  Wrapping her thighs around his waist, she cried out in passion as he took her almost savagely, his erection ramming itself home to the hilt each and every time.  In the throes of rutting passion, neither noticed, or would have cared about, the tinge of blood gathering in her vaginal juices as he thrust into her hot tight slippery wetness.   
  


<><>

  
Henry watched his brother fucking the young slut and grinned.   _Good old Ralph._  
  
"Hey, Danny," he commented, leaning to his left to address his young deputy.  Danny Hebert wasn't much over twenty-five, but he was definitely showing the ruthlessness needed for the top job.  "Charlene's free if you want her."  
  
"Ooh yes, Danny," Charlene put in.  She waved the toy riding-crop which had a dildo for a handle, then went back to obscenely pleasuring herself with it.  "I like playing horsey with you."  
  
"Sure, why not," Danny replied.  He looked down at the teenage girl who was sucking his cock.  "Get off," he told her.  "My wife needs attention.". The girl, costumed as a kitten, obediently went over to where Anne-Rose was being energetically fucked by a pair of fifteen year old boys, and began to kiss her and suckle on her breasts.  
  
Danny got up from the chair and gestured to Charlene.  "Come on, kiddo.  This time, the horsey is gonna do the riding."  
  
Eagerly, she bent over the lounger, and felt him pushing his long penis between her taut young buttocks.  She cried out as his head popped inside her; he echoed her, a grunt of pleasure.  Slowly, but with increasingly vigorous strokes, he began to fuck her ass, plunging his cock deep inside her tightest hole, eliciting cries of passion from the immature teen.  
  


<><>

  
When the first wave of passion had finally spent itself, when each of the men and women in the room had climaxed at least half a dozen times in illicit couplings, Ralph called for a brief pause in the proceedings.  Not that everyone stopped what they were doing; the Syndicate rep, for instance, had the angel on her lap, whispering deviant suggestions in her ear.  But everyone was paying attention.  
  
"Ladies and gentlemen," he began.  "I would like to thank you all for attending.  I would also like to thank Ms Smith there, for supplying the boys and girls that we did not bring ourselves."  
  
The woman called Smith nodded her head once, courteously.  She nibbled on the ear of the girl in her lap, and began molesting her tight young pussy with two fingers.  
  
"Here in this room, we have a Federal high court judge, two senators, a congressman, our very own police commissioner, a local judge - Charles, are you with us?"  
  
There were general chuckles as newly-robed Justice Charles Cardwell looked around guiltily from where he was carefully sliding his penis into his daughter's vagina.  Jenny Cardwell was about twenty or so, looked sixteen, and possessed the same sexual appetites as her father.  
  
"Sorry, sorry," he apologised.  "I just got carried away."  
  
"We'll only be a bit longer," Ralph assured him.  "Now then.  The Syndicate wants to expand its child-sex operations in Brockton Bay.  Ms Smith has suggested an interesting course of action. The Syndicate proposes to open a flesh market here in the city, where the standard Federal laws against underage sex, incest, obscenity, public nudity and the like, are null and void.". He swept his eyes around the room.  "And I have invited you people here to assist me in making that happen.  Carter?"  
  
George Carter was a Federal high court judge, who had already left his semen inside three girls, two boys, Ms Smith and Annette Hebert that evening.  He currently had Charlene Hamilton on his lap, and was rubbing his erect penis against her wet and slippery vagina.  "I believe I can hold up my end," he declared, lifting Charlene up slightly.  "With the right payoffs, I can steer any judgements of the situation to my docket, and sit on them till it all blows over.". With a soft groan, he felt the soft folds of her pussy flesh envelop his rampant erection as she slid down on to him.  
  
"Nice," Ralph commented, though it wasn't clear as to whether he was referring to the way Carter had stated that he would handle the situation, or the way he had gotten his cock inside Charlene's well-fucked pussy.  "Charles?"  
  
Justice Cardwell paused in his thrusting, his penis buried deep inside his daughter's tight wet vagina.  "I was a pretty good probate lawyer.  I'll draw up the incorporation documents with such tangled legalese that it would take two of me to unravel it and figure out exactly what the site is intended for.". He resumed stroking his penis in and out of the young woman under him, as she urged him on with throaty moans.  
  
Around the room, the various corrupt officials pledged to do their bit in shepherding through what would essentially be a massive piece of sleight-of-hand perpetrated against the government, aided and abetted by timely bribes, and the occasional offer of underage pussy or ass.  
  
The police commissioner, whose pretty young granddaughter was costumed as the kitten, pledged that his men would all understand to not pay close attention to what went on in the Market, within the guidelines so set.    
  
Danny Hebert was more or less a spectator; he had been brought along because of his proximity to the head position in the Collective, and his predilection for underage sex.  Annette, his wife, had come along because she shared Danny's tastes, and because she was remarkably free with her charms, given the slightest excuse.  
  
After the meeting broke up and the orgy resumed, Danny found himself alongside Cardwell.  Danny was energetically sodomising Jenny Cardwell, while the judge was doing the same to Annette Hebert.     
  
Danny clutched the young woman's hips as he pumped his rigid cock deep into the searing hot depths of her bowels.    
  
She grunted and pushed back at his strokes.  "Fuck, Annette," she groaned, "it feels like he's tickling my tonsils."  
  
"I know, right?"  Annette writhed in passion as Cardwell's thick penis plowed into her furrow.  "Oh god, fuck me deep, fuck me hard, you dirty bastard.  Rip my ass wide open with your filthy fucking prick."    
  
"Hey, Chuck, you and Jenny got a kid, don't you?" groaned Danny as he plunged hard into Jenny's welcoming rectal passage.  
  
"Yeah, three years old," grunted Cardwell, doing his best to obey Annette's exhortation.  From the way she cried out and clutched the lounger, he may have come close to succeeding.  "You?"  
  
Danny rammed his cock home again and again, driving Jenny into the transports of orgasm, before he came himself, filling her tight butthole with jet after jet of his copious semen.  He had to pause to catch his breath before answering.  
  
"We got a girl.  She's five."  
  
Cardwell didn't answer for another few strokes, plunging into Annette's clenching rectal passage repeately, causing her to cry out in climax before he came himself.  He pumped into her for a few more strokes, spurting his cum deep inside her, before he finally pulled out.  A white trickle of semen followed the exit of his cock from her thoroughly used asshole, matching the one emerging from between Jenny Caldwell's firm buttocks.  The two women, panting from their respective orgasms, rolled together and began to kiss and fondle one another.  
  
“So when you going to start fucking her?” asked Cardwell.  It was an article of faith with him that Danny would be doing just that.  
  
Danny shrugged, watching the kitten girl being double-teamed on the next lounger by her grandfather and Federal Judge Carter.  She seemed to be enjoying herself immensely.  “I'm thinking when she's about fourteen, fifteen.  Break her in then.”  
  
Annette broke off the kiss she was sharing with Jenny.  “No, I think when she's about thirteen.”  
  
Jenny pinched Annette's nipple, causing her to breathe heavily.  “Daddy fucked me when I was eleven.  I had Gretchen at seventeen.”  
  
“Yeah,” Cardwell agreed, caressing his daughter's ass.  “I'm thinking of starting Gretchen at the same age.”  
  
“Yeah, but Taylor's real skinny.  She's not going to be developing as fast as other kids.  I was a late bloomer, and so were you, Anne-Rose.  Give her time to be able to handle my cock.”  He eyed the length of his now-flaccid penis with some complacency.  
  
Annette bridled.  “Daddy was fucking me -”  
  
She never got to finish the sentence; there was a cry of alarm from across the room.  They turned, and saw Henry Hamilton lying half off a lounger.  
  
The devil and the angel had been on top of him, the devil on his face and the angel impaled on his upstanding penis.  She got off him now, the halo – all she was wearing, now – askew over one ear.  
  
“He came inside me, then started acting funny,” she whimpered in distress.  
  
As they came closer, they could see that Henry's face was purplish, and there was foam on his lips.  The devil girl was clutching her fingers in agitation.  “I don't think he's breathing,” she whispered.  
  
Everyone crowded around, all naked, most in some level of arousal.  
  
“Let me through,” Annette ordered briskly, and pushed her way to the front of the crowd.  “Everyone back there.  It looks like he's had a heart attack.  Give him some air.”  Naked, semen running down her legs, she knelt beside him.  
  
“What can she do?” demanded Ralph Hamilton.    
  
“I'm professionally trained in first aid,” Annette stated crisply.    
  
Danny blinked; this was the first he'd heard of this.  But he decided not to speak out quite yet.  
  
Annette knelt beside the stricken man, her small breasts dangling.  Not half an hour before, he had screwed her to a series of screaming orgasms, with his daughter kissing and fondling her breasts.  Now, his life rested in her hands.  
  
Which was unfortunate for him.  
  
She noted that he was still breathing, just barely.  “I'm going to have to do artificial respiration,” she announced loudly.  Pinching his nostrils shut, she placed her hand firmly over his mouth and blew hard into her other hand.  He struggled feebly at that, but he was so weakened that he could not make headway against her.  She redoubled her pressure on his mouth, and blew again.  And again.  And again.    
  
Not one breath of air reached his lungs, and his struggles weakened and ceased.  She felt for a pulse; she had an idea where it was in the neck.  As she found it, it weakened and died, just as he did.  
  
For appearances' sake, she faked a few more breaths, until finally looking up, ensuring to move her hand off his mouth.  
  
“I'm sorry, Ralph,” she told his brother.  “He's gone.”  
  
“Well,” joked Cardwell, “at least he went out the way he would have wanted to.”  
  
Ralph looked to Annette, then at Danny.  Danny shared a glance with his wife, then looked Ralph in the eye.  “As his deputy, I take over as head of the Collective,” he asserted steadily.  “And I will, of course, carry out all of the duties as he promised to do, this evening.”  
  
There was general nodding around the group.  That was only the right thing to do.  
  
Ralph felt a hand steal into his; he looked down to see Charlene looking up at him.  “Can I come live with you, Uncle Ralph?” she asked.  
  
Ralph considered this; to have the nubile Charlene in his house, in his bed, every night.  He could live with that.  
  
He wasn't a stupid man; like more than one person here, he strongly suspected that Annette Hebert had either just murdered his brother, or at least had made certain that he wouldn't survive the heart attack, or whatever it was.  But the Heberts would uphold their end of the bargains that had been set, and that was all one could do.  After all, it wasn't the first time someone had killed their way into a position of importance in Brockton Bay.  Sometimes, it was just the price of doing business.  
  
And as a bonus, he got to fuck Charlene every night.  
  
He looked up at Danny Hebert, at Annette, who was standing by her husband, holding his hand.  
  
“I don't see why not,” he agreed.  “I believe we can do business.”    
  
He held out his free hand.  Danny Hebert shook it.  
  
And that was that.  
  


<><>

  
**When Annette Left Danny**  
  
 **August, 2009**  
  
Taylor opened the front door and trotted in through the entrance hall, to the living room.  With a gusting sigh, she dropped her bag on the floor and flopped on to the couch.  She was reaching for the remote when her mother stepped through from the kitchen and snapped, “Not so fast, young lady.”  
  
Taylor looked up at her.  “What the fuck?  I just got in.  What are you on my case for already?”  
  
Annette pointed at her knees, liberally bedaubed with grass stains, and her elbows, similarly stained.  “You're going to have a bath.  Seriously, you're filthy.”  
  
“Aw, we had a bit of a game of netball, and a few of us got pushed over,” Taylor told her.  “It's nothing much.”  
  
Annette was having nothing of it.  “Bath.  Now.”  Marching over to Taylor, she grabbed her by the shoulder and hustled her upstairs.  
  
“Okay, okay, fine,” muttered Taylor.  “I'm going.  You don't have to get in with me this time.”  
  
Annette had bathed regularly with her daughter since Taylor could remember; it seemed to the girl that the occurrences were getting more and more regular these days.  It hardly seemed that she could go near the bathroom door before Annette was there, waiting.  
  
“Yes, I rather think I do,” Annette told her tartly.  “Young girls these days have no idea of hygiene.  You have to keep yourself clean.”  
  
To Taylor's surprise, the plug was already in, and the tub was more than half full of hot water.  Annette started pulling Taylor's clothes off, undressing her as if she were just a child.  
  
“It's okay, Mom, I can do this,” Taylor protested.  She wouldn't mind Mom undressing her if she wasn't so clumsy about it; she would accidentally squeeze Taylor's tits or her ass, or push fingers between Taylor's legs, and Taylor had no idea what that was about.  
  
Annette left Taylor to undress, and removed her own clothing.  Within a few moments, they were both naked, mother and daughter.  Annette was a few inches taller than her daughter, but just as skinny.  
  
Taylor looked down at herself as they stepped into the tub.  “When are my tits going to grow, Mom?” she asked.  “Like yours?  I like yours.”  
  
They settled down into the steaming water; it immediately attacked all their crevices, insinuating into their ass cracks and between their labia.  
  
Annette reached out with a hand that was wet with the hot water, and cupped Taylor's breast, squeezing it slightly.  “Oh, they'll grow.  Mine grew from being pregnant with you.  Maybe you should have a few kids, and they'll end up as big as Emma's.”  She captured Taylor's hands.  “Here, see how big mine are.”  
  
Obediently, Taylor squeezed her mother's breasts; Annette caught her breath, and felt herself becoming aroused at her daughter's innocent play.  
  
“Squeeze them harder,” she murmured.  “They won't break.”  
  
Taylor squeezed harder, and blinked as she felt Annette's nipples harden under her hands.  “Wow, that feels weird, Mom.”  
  
“Remember when I used to breast-feed you?” asked Annette.  
  
“Not really,” admitted Taylor.  
  
“Want to see if you can remember what it's like?” asked her mother daringly.  
  
“Um … okay.”  Taylor didn't know where this was going, but her mother wasn't shouting at her, and the hot water was feeling really nice, so she leaned in and put her mouth over her mother's nipple.  Slowly, and then with more force, she began to suckle.  
  
“Oh yeah,” groaned Annette.  “Suck it like that.  Suck harder.  Bite it a bit if you want.”  
  
Taylor sucked harder, and nipped at the end of Annette's nipple, nearly giving her mother an orgasm right then and there.  She felt her mother holding her close, and caressing her naked body, her hands feeling nice as they squeezed and fondled her back and belly and breasts and ass.  
  
When she stopped suckling on her mother's breast, she found herself backed up to Annette in the tub with her mother's arms around her.  She leaned back, feeling Annette's breasts pressing against her back, the hard nipples distinct points of pressure.  
  
 _Oh god,_  thought Annette.   _If I had a cock, I could fuck her **so hard**  right now._  
  


<><>

  
She closed her eyes and visualised it.  In her imagination, Taylor's breasts were fuller, rounder, more sensitive, and Taylor knew exactly what was going on.  Her own breasts were much larger as well.  
  
 _Annette cupped Taylor's breasts and squeezed them gently.  Taylor moaned.  “Oh, I like it when you do that, Mom.”  
  
She wriggled back a bit farther against her mother, until she bumped into something.  
  
“Mom!” she blurted in surprise.  “What's that?”  
  
Reaching under the steaming water, she found the thick phallus that had magically sprouted from Annette's loins.  Slowly, then more deliberately, she began to masturbate it.  
  
Annette squeezed her daughter's breasts harder; Taylor gasped with passion.  She raised herself up in the tub, and placed her soft wet virgin pussy over the head of the massive cock.  Slowly, erotically, she began to slide down on to it.  Annette could feel her tight pussy clenching around her cock, could feel it penetrating her daughter's hot slippery vaginal canal, pushing deeper, deeper, ever deeper._  
  
And then the daydream shifted, and they were on the bed.  
  
 _Taylor lay back, thighs spread, as Annette pumped the thick meaty cock between her well-stretched pussy lips.  
  
“Oh god yes Mom, fuck me,” gasped Taylor, clawing at Annette's back.  “Ram that thing up inside me.  Make me scream.  Cum inside me.”  
  
Annette fucked her as hard as she could, feeling Taylor's slippery depths clenching and squeezing her cock, feeling her balls banging against Taylor's ass.  Taylor's ass ..._  
  
The daydream shifted a second time.  
  
 _Taylor was bent over the couch, downstairs, as Annette held her by the hips and penetrated her ass with the giant cock.  As the head popped inside her, Taylor cried out.  
  
“Are you all right, honey?” asked Annette, still feeding the massive cock between her daughter's taut young buttocks.  
  
“Oh, yes, Mom,” came the immediate reply.  “Fuck my ass.  Fuck me so hard.”  
  
Annette grasped Taylor's breasts and began to thrust, pumping her hips, driving the massive cock deep into Taylor's ass.  The sensation was absolutely amazing …_  
  


<><>

  
“Mom?”  
  
Annette slowly became aware that she was grasping Taylor's breasts and humping her crotch into Taylor's ass.  She was so aroused that her vaginal canal was opening up, allowing the hot water to enter her, giving her some amazing sensations.  
  
“Mom, this feels nice, but we aren't getting any cleaner,” Taylor reminded her.  
  
Annette got the soap, and carefully washed her daughter's arms, starting at the fingertips, and continuing all the way to her breasts, which she carefully soaped and squeezed with her strong fingers.  Taylor felt the tingles as her erect nipples popped from between her mother's fingers.  
  
“Mm,” Taylor murmured.  “That feels kind of nice.”  
  
Annette smiled and nuzzled her daughter's neck; Taylor shivered.  
  
This was not the first time that they had shared a tub, not by a long shot.  Nor was it the first time that Annette had run her hands over Taylor's body under the pretence of getting her clean.  But this was the farthest that she had gone with her daughter.  
  
“Wash your legs,” she ordered softly, cupping Taylor's breasts with her hands.  
  
One at a time, Taylor washed her legs, cleaning off the grass stains, and getting them as clean as she could.  Annette took over once she reached her thighs, running her hands over Taylor's legs, all the way up to the juncture of her thighs, where her tender soft pussy lips lurked, under the water.  
  
With the cloth in hand, she carefully cleaned every inch of Taylor's labia, and then spread her buttocks to soap down her tight little ass as well.  Then she discarded the cloth and pretended to continue cleaning her, caressing and probing her virgin pussy and asshole with her bare fingertips.  
  
Taylor groaned as she felt her mother cleaning her off.   _Why doesn't it feel this good to wash myself?_  she asked herself.  All sorts of funny feelings were running through her body.  She wriggled, half turning, and began to run her hands over her mother's shaven vaginal area.  Just as Annette did to her, she parted the soft, fleshy lips with her fingers, and explored what she found within.  
  
Her hand found and cupped a little opening; she pressed a finger into it, and Annette gasped out loud.  “Oh yes, Taylor, that feels nice.”  
  
“I'm just helping you get clean, Mom,” Taylor murmured back.  She felt her own labia being parted, and her mother's finger sliding into her.  In and out, it went.  In and out.  She repeated the action in her mother's tight orifice.  In and out.  In and out.  
  
Annette pulled Taylor's head around toward hers, and kissed her on the lips, a sensual kiss, a kiss that awoke strange feelings within her.  She kissed her mother back, slid another finger into her, and squeezed her breast.  
  
“Clean my ass, Taylor honey,” Annette groaned.  “Clean my ass good.”  
  
Taylor obediently moved her hand back under her mother, who lifted up slightly to allow this.  She found her mother's tight little anal passage, and rubbed it with her fingers.  In the soapy water, she found it was easy to enter.  Her finger slid inside, followed by a second.  
  
“My ass is really dirty,” Annette whimpered, and kissed her again.  “Clean it hard.”  
  
Taylor jammed her fingers as hard as she could into her mother's ass, working them in and out to clean her properly.  She felt her mother's finger sliding deeper and deeper into her, and her thumb rubbing at another part of her, a part that sent sparks of pleasure through her.  
  
Annette felt her young daughter finger-fucking her ass, and squeezing her breasts, and couldn't stand it any more.  “Come on,” she told Taylor.  “Get up.  Out of the tub.”  
  
“But I don't know if we're clean enough yet,” Taylor protested.  She was really enjoying the cleaning that her mother was doing to her, and knew her mother liked what she did in return.  
  
But protests did no good.  Annette towelled her down roughly, giving her no chance to dress, then pulled her along the hallway to the master bedroom.  
  
“On the bed,” she ordered her daughter.  “I need to make sure you're properly clean.  Spread your legs.”  
  
Taylor obediently lay back and spread her legs; Annette got down between them and sniffed at her fresh clean pussy.  “Dirty as hell,” she growled.  “Hold still.”  And she began to lick and lap at Taylor's exposed vaginal lips.  
  
Taylor couldn't believe what was happening.  Her mother was cleaning her pussy with her tongue!  And it felt so very, very good.  She never wanted her to stop.  She felt her mother's lips and tongue and teeth teasing at her, and abruptly, a bubble of pleasure swelled up and burst within her; she arched her back and cried out, collapsing back to the bed in panting bewilderment.  
  
“Wow,” she gasped.  “What was that?”  
  
“You're ready,” Annette decided, and reached over the side of the bed.  Taylor dazedly watched her strap on a strange device, which included a plastic phallus …  
  
Abruptly, everything that had happened since she walked in the door fell into focus.    
  
“Oh fuck, that's – we've been doing sex stuff.  You're going to have sex with me, aren't you?”  
  
Annette leaned down and kissed Taylor; the thirteen year old, still rather aroused, returned the kiss.  
  
“Oh, yes,” murmured Annette.  “And you're going to love it.”  
  
Taylor did not argue, did not try to struggle.  She simply lay there, watching as her mother got on top of her.  The plastic cock lined up between her thighs, came to rest with the tip pressing between her soft, swollen labia …  
  
The door crashed open, and the dildo jerked an inch into Taylor's tight young pussy as Annette jumped in fright.  Taylor cried out, as much in surprise as in pain – of which there was very little.  
  
Danny stood there, eyes blazing with anger.  
  
“For fuck's sake, you stupid bitch, I told you!  We're waiting till she's fifteen!”  
  
Annette rolled off of Taylor; the plastic phallus popped out of her again.  “And I say she's ready now!  Look at her!  She's hot to trot!”  
  
Danny grabbed Annette by the shoulder and yanked her off the bed.  As she got up, he back-handed her viciously, sending her to the floor once more, blood spurting from her nose.  
  
Taylor got up on her knees.  “Dad, no, it's fine.  She didn't hurt me!”  
  
Danny slapped her then, sending her sprawling on the bed.  “Shut up, you little fucking whore.  I say you're not fucking till you're fifteen, you don't fuck until you're fifteen!  Now get the fuck out of my sight!”  
  
His anger was so monumental, the pain from the slap so sharp, that Taylor didn't argue.   Snatching the coverlet to hide her nakedness, she retreated into the closet.  Pulling the door closed, she tried to hide her ears from the sounds from outside.    
  


<><>

  
Annette got up again, and Danny knocked her down once more.  She would have a black eye come the next day.  He unbuckled his belt, looking down at her.  
  
Blinking away the tears in her bruised eye, sniffing blood through her broken nose, Annette looked up at him.  “You want to fuck me?  Okay, we can fuck.”  
  
But he didn't want to fuck.  He pulled the belt free of the loops and then began to beat her with it.  Again and again the heavy leather fell, striping her flesh, leaving bruises where it struck.  He pulled her on to the bed, ripped the dildo from her hips, and beat her with his fists; her other eye was blacked, her lips were smashed against her teeth, and her breasts were crushed by his strong grip.  
  
And then, only then, did he turn her over, and ram his hard cock into her.  
  
“I've been to see Kurt and Lacey,” he growled, as she whimpered; he was being anything but gentle, as he thrust his penis between her buttocks, deep into her yielding ass.  “They saw you in the Market.  Fucking all comers.”  He rammed even deeper, eliciting a groan from her.  “I don't mind you going to the Market.  I don't even mind you inviting other guys to fuck you.”  
  
He groaned as he emptied out into her ass, then rolled her over and slapped her face, hard.  “I knew you were a slut when I married you.  I like you that way.  But I draw the line when you do something like this –  _and you don't fucking invite me!”_  
  
He slapped her again, then pushed her off the floor and on to the bed.  She lay there, whimpering softly.  “Now, get the fuck out of here.  Go live with one of your fuck-buddies.  It's not like you've got a lack of options there.  But once you leave, you don't come back, and you don't see Taylor.  Got it?”  
  
She didn't respond.  He kicked her, not too hard, in the ribs.  She gagged, then nodded weakly.  
  
“Be out of town in a week,” he advised her.  “I see you around, I might just get pissed off with you.”  
  
He stomped from the room, went downstairs.  
  
After about fifteen minutes, Annette dragged herself to her feet.  She stumbled to the bathroom and inspected the damage.  She cleaned herself up as best she could, then staggered back to the bedroom, got out a suitcase, and painfully began to pack clothes into it.  
  
Eventually, she left.  
  
And Taylor stayed in the closet.  She didn't dare come out.  
  


<><>

  
A day and a half later, as Danny was lying in bed, he heard a muffled sound coming from the closet.  He got up, to find Taylor, crying softly to herself.  
  
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” he asked harshly.  
  
She didn't answer; she just whimpered and pulled the coverlet more tightly about herself.  
  
Reaching into the closet, he picked her up, coverlet and all, and walked out of his bedroom.  Depositing her on her bed, he went back to his own bedroom, closed the door, and went back to bed.  
  
The next morning, Taylor crept down to breakfast, looking pale and wan.  
  
Neither of them ever referred to the incident, ever again.  In fact, if anyone even mentioned Annette's departure, Taylor would go pale and start shaking.  
  


<><>

  
  
**When Danny Fucked Taylor**  
  
 **Hotel Room, August 2009**  
  
Danny kissed Taylor, and began to slide his penis into her.   _Well, it's a little early, but I'm really fucking horny, and she looks about ready.  What the fuck._  
  
Under him, she gasped as he penetrated her for the first time.  He gasped as well; her virgin pussy was so tight, so hot, that he thought he was going to cum on the spot.  But he controlled himself, pushed deeper, felt her starting to move and respond under him.  He felt her becoming slippery, felt his thrusts go deeper and deeper, heard her gasps and grunts as he fucked her.  
  
He kissed her again; she responded.  She moaned his name, ran her hands over his back, spread her thighs a bit more.  He felt his climax building, and he started really getting into it, thrusting into her as hard as he could.  It was incredible; her pussy was so tight and hot, and she was taking all of him, over and over again.  It was like the first time he'd ever fucked Annette's ass.  
  
And then he came, and it was like all the frustrations, all the hassles, all the irritations, poured out of the tip of his cock and spurted deep into Taylor's tender teenage womb.  He pumped his cum into her, thrusting again and again, feeling all the tension drain out of himself.  
  
He kissed Taylor one more time, tongue meeting tongue, as the last of his semen entered her womb.   _God damn, I **needed**  that,_ he told himself.  Rolling off of her, he settled down with his head on the pillow.  
  
 _I'm going to have to do that again._  
  
Within moments, he was asleep.  
  
It was the most restful sleep he'd had in the twelve months since Annette left.


	14. Greg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Greg Veder is a straight-A student, a Puritan, and a computer whiz. However, he's also hacking into the deep web Syndicate boards, wishing he could help Taylor Hebert, and unsuccessfully fending off his oversexed stepmother.
> 
> Can things get any worse?
> 
> Yes, yes, they can.

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■

**♦Topic: Drug House Hit**

**In: Boards ► Fucking Heroes ► Upsiders**

**BottomFeeder**  (Original Poster)

Posted on April 15, 2011:

So, I hear the Upsiders hit a drug house.  Burned the powder, got away with the dollars.  Or was it burned the dollars, got away with the drugs?

**(Showing Page 3 of 47)**

 

> **SellSword**   (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Syndicate Member)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> We will catch those little shits, and when we do, they are never gonna bother anyone in this town at all.  Ever.
> 
> **HeroFucker**   (Cape Groupie)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> Yeah well, I notice that you didn't do much to stop them.  Were you off fucking Artillery up the ass again?
> 
> **SellSword**   (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Syndicate Member)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> HeroFucker, shut that mouth or I'll shut it for you.
> 
> **Artillery**   (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Syndicate Member)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> And if he doesn't, I will.
> 
> **SellSword**   (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Syndicate Member)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> I swear, if I ever find who posted that footage ...
> 
> **DogBiscuit**
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> I hear the Minions got taken down pretty good.
> 
> **CaptainZombie**   (Verified Cape) (Minion)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> And you can fuck off too.  There was a new cape on scene.  Some bug controller.
> 
> **HeroFucker**   (Cape Groupie)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> In fact, I heard that the Minions got taken down even though Pandemic was in the building, and Teaser was outside.  What the fuck happened there?  Did Teaser stop off to give some random a BJ?
> 
> **DirtyBastard**
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> Can't have.  She's already blown all the guys in town.
> 
> **KingHit**
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> She hasn't blown me yet.
> 
> **ProctologistNightmare**
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> Well, he did mean those people with actual dicks.
> 
> **KingHit**
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> Fuck off, ProctologistWetdream.
> 
> **GrabBag**   (The Guy In The Know)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> Okay, so all joking aside, what happened in there with Pandemic?  Isn't she supposed to be all fucking scary?
> 
> **Teaser**   (Verified Cape) (Cape Daughter) (Brockton Bay Brigands)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> Pandemic got a broken wrist and a concussion.  And when I catch up with the bitch who did that, I'm gonna fuckin' spread her over three miles of highway.
> 
> **HeroFucker**   (Cape Groupie)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> Yeah, big talk.  I preferred it when you were bent over for me last Saturday night.  Remember?  Down on the Boardwalk?  Your sister told you "Fuck that guy".  I was that guy.  Best anal I ever had.
> 
> **Pandemic**   (Verified Cape) (Cape Daughter) (Brockton Bay Brigands)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> Thanks for the tip, HeroFucker.  Now I know where to find you.
> 
> **DogBiscuit**
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> So, death threats aside, is there anyone going to do anything about the Upsiders?  They're really making a nuisance of themselves.
> 
> **SellSword**   (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Syndicate Member)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> Don't worry.  I've got a lead on them.  And when I catch them, especially that little bitch Insight, I've got something special for them.
> 
> **HeroFucker**   (Cape Groupie)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> In your pants!
> 
> **Artillery**   (Verified Cape) (Veteran Member) (Syndicate Member)
> 
> Replied on April 15, 2011:
> 
> For starters.

**End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 45 , 46, 47**

<><>

Greg Veder paused; a blinking red icon had popped up in the corner of his screen. He knew what that meant; the SO mods were two jumps away from locating his IP address. Unhurriedly, he entered the keystrokes to drop out of the boards and back to the ordinary net.

The icon stayed, blinking faster. One jump away.  _Fuck._

Castigating himself for even thinking the swearword – Puritans had to be pure in thought, word and deed – he stomped down on the floor switch of the power board that fed his modem and computer. Power cut, they died immediately.

He didn't relax; if they had really located him, teleporters might be popping into his bedroom at any moment now. He reached under the desk, and his hand curled around the comforting grip of the nine-millimetre Glock that he had acquired during a previous excursion into the Deep Web.

Not that he held much hope of his survival if they had indeed located him; if they did get to him, he intended to take as many as possible with him, and save the last bullet for himself. Anything was better than to be grabbed for spying on the Syndicate's private message boards. Or worse, the PRT. Rumour was that whole families died if you crossed  _them_.

He waited, tense. The house creaked slightly as it settled. Under him, the chair squeaked gently as he shifted a little to look out the window. The curtains ruffled slightly under the impulse of a breeze that found its way in through the barely-open window. With the computer off, the loudest sound in the room was his breathing, followed by the ticking of the clock on the wall.

_Was that a noise? Is someone climbing up the side of the house?_

His hand closed convulsively over the butt of the pistol, and he pulled it clear of its makeshift holder. More scratching sounded, outside, then there came the sound of heavy wings beating as some night bird took off. His heart rate slowed to merely rapid-fire levels, and he took a deep breath, then another one, before holding his breath and trying to listen.

Nothing. Just the clock ticking. He looked at it. Ten minutes.

_Ten minutes? It felt like ten hours._

Carefully, he slid the Glock back into its holder and leaned back in his chair. Despite the cool air in the room, his forehead was beaded with sweat. Slowly, he began to relax.  _They didn't track me down. But it was close._

Pressure on the foot switch fed power to the computer; as it went through its startup sequence, he breathed slowly and deeply.  _I'm playing a dangerous game. I need to stay calm._

And then his bedroom door opened suddenly, startling him. Just barely, he managed to avoid grabbing for the pistol, and instead looked inquiringly at his stepmother's face, as she leaned in through the door.

“Uh, hi, Mom,” he greeted her, trying to sound as awkward as he could. “What's up?”

“We were just coming up to bed,” she told him. “I thought I'd check in on you. What're you doing?”

“Oh, uh, nothing,” he told her, hitting keys to activate a series of macros.

“Gregory Veder,” she chided him. “You know I can tell when you're not telling the truth.”  _That's not true, but I'll let you keep thinking it._  Entering the room, she took a good look at his computer terminal, leaning low beside him. “Homework? Now I  _know_  you're up to something.” Her nightgown top gaped open, her full breasts hanging free, just beside his face.

“Mo- _om,”_  he groaned. “Can't a guy actually do homework without being given the third degree?”

“Well, if you were actually doing homework, I would be okay with it,” she retorted. “But I know you, Greg.” Reaching down to the keyboard, she pressed a couple of keys, and blinked at the window that revealed itself. “Oh … oh, really?”

“It's only porn, Mom,” he told her with seeming embarrassment. “I'm a teenage guy. We look at it all the time.”

She studied the porn. Quite a lot of it seemed to involve teenage boys with mature-age women. As if by accident, her bare breast strayed from her nightgown and pressed against his cheek.

“Oh, well, don't stay up too long playing with yourself,” she warned him, running her hand down over his crotch.

“Not a school night, Mom,” he protested.

“Doesn't matter,” she replied. Leaning closer, she whispered, “Be a good boy and we might just visit the Market sometime soon.”

Greg felt himself hardening under her touch. “Mom … “ he murmured.

“Just don't be up too late,” she warned him, and kissed him on lips, slow, soft and gentle. “Sweet dreams.”

“Uh huh.” Reaching up, he cupped her breast with his hand; it seemed to be expected of him. She murmured in pleasure, then rescued the errant mammary, tucking it back into her nightgown as she stood up. Her buttocks flashed him from under the hem of the absurdly short nightgown as she sashayed from the room. “Night, Mom.”

He watched the door close behind her, then turned to his computer. The porn was a blind, of course; he had as little interest in viewing it as he did in visiting the Market with his oversexed stepmother. Breathing exercises steadied him; his erection subsided.  _It's just a series of reflexes forced on me by blind evolution. I am pure in thought, word and deed._

Closing both decoy windows, he frowned in deep thought as he brought up the list of proxies he could use, the ones that weren't already burned. There were fewer than there had been an hour ago. More would crop up, of course, but it was a slow process.  _Better not access the SO boards for a while then. I wonder how the mods rumbled me? Maybe I should've posted something._

His thoughts strayed back to his stepmother again.  _How do I deflect her?_  For a moment, he considered allowing her to catch him masturbating to a picture of some masculine figure or other.  _If she thinks I'm gay, maybe she'll leave me alone._

_Or maybe she'll try to 'cure' me. Yeah, no thanks._

Through the wall, he heard the first gasps and grunts and squeaking of bedsprings that indicated that his father and stepmother would be occupied for some time to come.

Frowning in concentration, he accessed another proxy and went on to the PHO boards. It was ill-organised at the best of times; he had to plough through reams of spam and scam posts before getting to anything resembling actual content.

From an anonymous guest account, he sent a message to Insight.  _Big fan of yours. Can we meet sometime?_

Hopefully, she would see through it to his true purpose and PM him back. Then he could warn her. She might even take it seriously; it was the best that he could do without actually finding out her real identity and approaching her in the real world. Not that he'd ever  _do_  that; such a thing would be stupid, and highly risky for the both of them.

_I just wish I could help Taylor, too._

<><>

Greg was a straight-A student at Winslow, a shoo-in for a college scholarship; he regularly pulled in prizes for his work. But despite his best intentions, people tended to crowd around him to bask in the reflected glory, not because they actually liked him. His actual friends were few and far between; Taylor was one of the few girls who treated him the same as she treated everyone else. That is, with arrogant disdain. What put other people off actually attracted him; he felt that if a girl who disliked people could be persuaded to like him, he would have made a real friend.

Not that he intended to do anything more than be her friend; he was a Puritan, after all. But he was convinced that there was a secret she was hiding; something about her father.  _I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that he's abusing her, or even whoring her out at the Market._  Danny Hebert was a powerful figure in the city, and rumour told of his abuses of power; it was just the thing that he might do.  _Whatever I do, whatever I say, I'm going to have to be careful._

He felt a certain kinship to her; he was isolated by his scholastic success, while she was set apart by her disdain for anyone who wasn't her. Yes, she occasionally bullied and victimised her fellow students – particularly Emma Barnes and Madison Clements – but to him that was a symptom of a greater problem. That was learned behaviour, he believed; learned from a powerful, ruthless father.  _And what can be learned, can be unlearned._  Once she saw that he actually had concern for her well-being, was willing to help her, perhaps he could connect with her.  _I like her. I want her to see that she's likeable. Once she sees that, perhaps she will stop striking out at the world._

Of course, he had no illusions that it would be an overnight process. Her problems ran deep, but once she had accepted his friendship, he would do what he could to help her sort them out.  _One step at a time._

Manually, he turned off his modem, then double-checked his computer for any sort of running software that might store information and retransmit it later. Finding nothing, he pulled up an encrypted file and typed in the key. Almost instantly, it opened up to where he had last finished working on it.

It was fairly large, over a hundred thousand words so far; he figured that it might be twice or three times that size before he was finished. It had evolved as he had written it; originally, it had been a mundane essay on the state of law and order in Brockton Bay, but some ideas in it had struck him as being interesting, and he had saved them before handing in the essay. Going back to the ideas, he had developed them, then written more on the subject, backing up the essay with his own observations. Currently it was titled  _Right and Wrong,_ but he suspected that it might change again before he was finished with it.

_'… instinctive reaction of the average person is to do good, to do right by the fellow man. It is only by association with others that one learns bad traits; to steal, to attack, to kill. Our laws, based around the instinct for good, tend to be lax, as most people understand the basis behind them on a visceral level. This fails us when we encounter an organisation of entrenched evil; we try to deal with it as per normal, and we fail. Unfortunately, those who reach positions of power seem to be quite adept at ignoring their inner good instinct … '_

He frowned, typing a few corrections here and there, tightening some phrasing. Absent rules, people tended to play fair. It was when rules and laws came into being that they started to work to get around them. And so, for every law, there were a thousand loopholes. This was the basis of the work; he had hopes that it would end up on the best-seller list someday.

A few paragraphs came to him, and he typed them up, then saved the work, re-encrypting it as he did so. Some of the information in there came from the SO boards, and he devoutly hoped that the authors of the words he had stolen would have long since forgotten their posts by the time his  _magnum opus_  made print.

Leaning back in his chair, he let his mind drift. After a few moments, he found himself pondering the concept of a world where people were inherently greedy, where laws were required to keep the unscrupulous from fleecing the less aware. Would it be a paradise, he wondered, or would it be even harsher, as things like speed limits and drinking age became an actual definitive aspect, as opposed to a general guideline?

Would crime be more prevalent or less? With stricter laws, would criminals pay heed to them, or ignore them at the risk of harsher jail terms, doled out by an uncaring justice system? With the police and superheroes more organised than the criminals, would such a world be a paradise of justice, or would the legal system there be just as disorganised as the criminals here?

He tried to imagine a mirrored Taylor in such a world; a sweet, gentle and kindly girl, she would be much easier to make friends with.  _But would I be the sort of person that she would make friends with?_

It was something to wonder about.  _I'm socially adept, charismatic, intelligent … does this mean that a mirror-me would be the opposite?_  He shuddered.  _I think I'd rather be me. But I'd still like to meet a mirror version of Taylor. She would probably be easier to get along with than the one we have at the moment._

Ensuring that his document was stored away again, he restarted the modem and logged on to the PHO site. There was no answer yet to his offer, but he had hopes. Insight was not known to be stupid, after all.  _I just hope she gets back to me before Sellsword gets hold of her._ The Syndicate villain had a well-deserved reputation for long-held grudges, and violence in general.

Shutting down his computer, he turned out the light and got into bed. It took him a while to get comfortable, not helped by the loud noises of passion from the next bedroom. His stepmother describing in explicit detail what she wanted his father to do to her was … excessive. He could not help imagining it, and he found himself hardening again.

_No. I will not allow this. I am Puritan._

Slow breathing and visualisation of the Puritan ideal allowed his body to reach its norm once more;  _I am Pure in thought, word and deed._

Rolling over, he sought refuge in sleep, even as noises from the next room arose once more. His last coherent thought was,  _I wonder what a true mirror world would be like?_

<><>

In the middle of the night, he sat up, bolt upright, eyes wide. In his mind's eye, he could see a machine. Fumbling on his night-light, he scrabbled for a pencil and pad, and sketched furiously. Page after page was covered in drawings and notes, the pencil flying over the paper. He had no idea what it was that he was drawing, but he knew that it was somehow important.

Finally, he faltered. His eyelids grew heavy; he scribbled a last few notes, and dropped the pad on the bedside table. The light clicked off, leaving bright after-images swimming in his vision.

_I wonder what that thing is, anyway?_

He was asleep before he could think of an answer.

<><>

“Wake up, honey … “

Slowly, his eyes edged their way open. Standing over him was his stepmother, wearing a tight belly tee, with a short skirt below. She wore no bra, he knew for a fact.

“Morning, Mom,” he greeted her, and went to sit up.

“Morning, Greg,” she purred, leaning down to give him a kiss that was not in the least bit motherly. “How are you feeling this morning?”

“I, uh, think I might mow the lawn or something today,” he gasped, once he got his breath back.

“Eventually,” she murmured, reaching down to rub at his groin. His treacherous penis responded almost at once, swelling thickly despite his best efforts at self-control.

“Mmmm ...” she breathed, peeling off her top to show that yes, she was wearing nothing under it. Her breasts bounced delightfully as she leaned over to fish his erection from his pyjama pants. The sight of them caused him to swell even harder, even as he did his best to distract himself with …

Her mouth closed over the head of his cock, and distractions melted away. The sensation was … astounding. It was even better than the serene knowledge that being a Puritan would end all worldly problems. As she suckled on him, drawing his throbbing length ever deeper into her mouth, he arched his back and groaned in agonised pleasure.

He'd had erections before, of course. He had even held his penis while erect. But he had never done more than that. The sensations that were now gathering in the base of his rock-hard manhood, the ones surrounding his shaft as her lips and tongue worked on it, were ones that he had not thought he would ever feel until lying abed with his lawfully wedded wife.

Skilfully, his stepmother sucked his cock harder and harder, gently caressing his testicles. He could see her breasts bobbing and swaying under her, the nipples erect. And then he let out a muffled shout, as a blast of pleasure rocketed the length of his cock and erupted from the tip. Over and over it happened, over and over he felt the ecstasy seize him, until he thought that the top of his head would take flight and achieve planetary orbit.

Through eyes that were trying to cross, Greg looked down toward his stepmother, who was letting his softening length slide from between her lips. A naughty tongue lapped a droplet of white from the corner of her mouth. Somehow, he knew that the white liquid had come from his penis.

“Oh … god,” he groaned, trying not to throw up from the horror of what had just happened. His mental anguish warred with the overriding physical pleasure, leaving him more than a little nauseated.

“Did you like it, honey?” murmured his stepmother. She made to climb on to the bed; her skirt rode up, revealing only the flimsiest of panties covering her unmentionable parts from view. “We can do more if you want.”

And then, downstairs, the sweetest sound that Greg had ever heard; the sound of his dad's car, pulling into the driveway.

“Better not,” he forced out. “Dad's home.”

Her lips curved into a smile. “”Later then, honey.” Picking up her top, she pulled it on, then trotted out of his room in the direction of the bathroom.

Greg got up, adjusting his pyjamas in order to make himself modest, then waited until she had gone downstairs to meet his father. He lurched into the bathroom, locked the door, and threw up copiously into the toilet.

 _I can't believe that I let her do that,_ he told himself.  _I should be Pure in thought, word and deed. That was not Pure! I should have rebuked her! She is married to my father, and should be respecting that sacred union!_

Getting up, he flushed the toilet, then stumbled to the shower. Gradually, the hot spray woke him up, unlocking his mental processes.  _I still can't believe how good it felt,_  he told himself.  _When I am wed, I have much to look forward to. I wonder if Taylor would be interested in the life of a Puritan?_  A mental sigh.  _Probably not._

<><>

Just as he was stepping from the shower, there was a knock on the door. “Greg, you there?”

“Yeah, Dad?” he replied.

“Me and your mom are going out for a while,” his father replied. “There's stuff she wants me to try out, at the Market.”

“Have fun, Dad,” he responded.

“Sure you don't want to come along?”

“No, Dad. I'm fine. Thanks anyway. Have a good time.”

As Greg dried himself, he heard his father's tread going downstairs, and then the front door opened and closed. The car pulled out of the driveway as he started getting dressed.

His father, he knew, would be respecting the bond of marriage no more than his stepmother. At the Market, they would be indulging themselves in ways no Puritan would countenance. In some small way, it assuaged the guilt of allowing his stepmother to violate him like that, as the sanctity of that marriage had obviously long since lapsed.

_Still, it must not happen again. I must go out, seek a Puritan enclave, and purify myself._

But as he was sitting on the bed, pulling his shoes on, his gaze fell upon the notepad, and the interlude during the night returned to him.

_What **was**  that device which I was drawing?_

Picking up the notepad, Greg began paging through it. The drawings looked strange, but he found that he could understand them. Wandering downstairs, he made himself some cereal and ate it, while still perusing the notebook.

After he rinsed the dish and spoon, he wandered out to the garage. His father considered himself a do-it-yourselfer, and the shelves were crammed with every type of junk available. Greg began to go through them, picking out bits and pieces. They didn't match the parts that he had visualised, not exactly, but somehow he knew that they would do.

After he had gotten all the parts together, he began to assemble them. Some didn't fit exactly, but he found that he could file them down, or in one case, chip a piece off the side, to make them slot into place. It took him a while, following the spidery notes that he had scribbled down, sometimes trailing off the edge of the page, but toward the end, he was pretty sure that he had gotten it right.

There were a couple of pieces that he wasn't quite sure how they fitted into the contraption, but with a bit of work, he got them connected up.

Adding a heavy battery and attaching it to the terminals was the work of a moment. And then he threw the switch.

Nothing seemed to be happening.

He eyed the thing; it wasn't humming, beeping or buzzing. He was pretty sure that it was a Tinker tech device of some sort. Which made him a Tinker. But he had no idea what the thing was supposed to do.

With a sigh, he threw it on to the work bench and pulled the lawnmower out.  _If I mow the yard, maybe I'll have a better idea of what to do about it._ Grunting with the effort, he wheeled the mower outside; soon a roar of engine noise indicated that he'd gotten it started.

On the work bench, lights blinked on the device; the drop on to the bench had connected two vital components. It began to function.

Several miles and a whole universe away, Taylor Hebert stared in confusion as her bedroom mirror became a window to another world …


	15. Alice Through the Looking Glass, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Taylor Hebert climbs through a portal into the MirrorVerse, she has no way to expect what she finds ...

**Saturday, April 16, 2011**

**Brockton Bay, Earth Bet**

I paused, mid brush-stroke. Mom had always encouraged me to take care of my hair; a little darker than hers, it was just as curly. In her memory, I tried to brush it out at least once a day; truth be told, if I let it go longer than that, it did its best to become an impenetrable tangle of knots. If nothing else today, I was going to do that; the concussion I had suffered yesterday at Bakuda's hands didn't leave me much else to do. Fortunately, the pills were keeping the headache to a dull murmur.

But it wasn't my hair or the concussion that was the problem right now. I was more concerned with the fact that my image had just vanished from the mirror in front of me. One moment there, the next … not.

Squinting through my glasses, I moved my head from side to side. No, it wasn't a trick of the light. There really was no _me_ in the mirror.

_Oh shit. What if I'm hallucinating?_ That could only mean bad things. A brain bleed, or worse. Pressure on the … what was it called, video centre? Visual something or other? Whatever it was, maybe I had brain damage that the CT scan had missed. And now I was seeing … well, not seeing _things_. Literally _not_ seeing something. That is, me.

I wondered momentarily if this was going to be permanent. A very specific hallucination causing me to block any image of myself out of my mind. _This is gonna make putting on makeup very difficult._ I paused. _Maybe it's my glasses?_

Reaching up, I pulled my glasses off. The mirror got a little blurry, but I didn't see a blurry me in there. _Okay, there goes that idea._ Putting them back on, I reached forward. _Final test. See if the mirror's still there._ Intellectually, I knew it was. It had to be. It was a part of my dresser, which was free-standing against the wall. I could see my room behind it, which would be impossible to fake, given that the dresser was against the outside wall of the house, and so the room would have to be projecting several yards out into empty air.

But concussion plus pain meds makes it easier to do things that you know are illogical. So I reached out to touch the mirror.

Only it wasn't there.

I paused, half-standing, my arm halfway up to the elbow _inside my damn mirror._ I waved my hand around, feeling no resistance. It was there. I could see it clearly. It was also sticking through a hole that shouldn't exist, into a mirror-imaged room that shouldn't exist.

I didn't freak out, mainly because my brain wasn't hitting on all cylinders. Slowly, I pulled my arm out of the impossible hole in the wall and moved around to look down the narrow gap behind the dresser and the mirror. If I squinted, I could see the back of the mirror and I could also see the wall. They both existed.

Without even asking myself _what the fuck am I doing?_ I reached around, feeling my hand go through the mirror once more as if it had simply ceased to be. Standing next to the dresser, I could see that the back of the mirror and the wall were undisturbed, despite the fact that I had my arm elbow-deep in the damn mirror.

Pulling my arm out again, I went to the window and leaned out. The sunlight stung my eyes a little, but I was able to ascertain that no, nobody had bolted an extra bedroom to the outside of the house overnight. There was a wall there, with no holes at all. Nothing that I could stick my arm through. Nothing that made any sense at all.

I went back and sat on the bed. _Okay. My mirror is now a window into a mirror-image of my room. That's kind of weird. But I'm pretty sure there's weirder shit out there._

With a thought, I called up a dozen bugs and sent them through the mirror. They passed through perfectly fine, so I spread them out to explore the mirror-house. While they were doing this, I lay back on the bed; I may have dozed for a few moments.

When I woke up, the mirror was still a window. The bugs were spread out through the mirror-house; I gathered from their sensory impressions that all the rooms in my house were the same in that house, only mirror-imaged. To go to the bathroom from my room, I'd have to turn left instead of right, that sort of thing. Outside the house was … well, outside. I guided a beetle to fly up to the mirror-house window and inside. Nothing flew in my window. But when I told it to go to the mirror, there it was.

And then I caught my breath. Because sitting on the sofa in the mirror-living room, reading what was probably a mirrored newspaper, was … Dad.

Not _my_ Dad, but a mirror version of him.

_Wow, holy fuck._

I reached out to the bugs in _my_ living room, and … there was Dad. My _real_ Dad. He was watching TV; I couldn't make out what was on. And at the same time, I was using my bugs to watch _another_ Dad, in a different world, do something subtly different.

_This is so damn weird._

At this point, I should have stopped. Taken stock. At the very least, told Dad what was going on. Shown him the mirror. Maybe I should even have called in Lisa and Brian and shown _them_ the mirror. Shit, I should have called up the PRT and told _them_ about it. After all, the huge song and dance about the Earth Aleph portal that Professor Haywire had created had never really gone away. And that one was _tiny._ This one, I could literally _climb_ through.

I blame the meds and the concussion. Because there was literally no other excuse for the next thought that popped into my head.

_Hey, why don't I go through and find out what it's like on the other side?_

There were probably _hundreds_ of good reasons.

I couldn't think of a one.

<><>

Dad looked up when I got to the bottom of the stairs. “Taylor, are you all right?”

“Sure,” I told him. “I was just going to get a snack, then have a shower and get some more sleep. Is that okay?” _Translation: I don't want to be disturbed for the next few hours._

“Of course it is,” he assured me, jumping up from the couch. “You know, you could use the bed down here and watch TV.”

I made a face. “The sofa bed is kind of lumpy. I'm happy in my own bed.”

“Whatever's fine with you.” He led the way into the kitchen. “What would you like for a snack?”

“Um, a sandwich?”

He pointed at a chair. “Sit down, I'll make it for you.”

Guilt started to jab at me as I obeyed. He was so anxious to please, so willing to do whatever I needed. _Maybe I should tell him._

Opening my mouth, I almost did. The filter between my brain and my mouth was that thin. But then I found myself running through the conversation that would follow.

_Uh, Dad, I found a portal to another world in my bedroom mirror. I'm gonna explore it._

_Taylor, that's not a good idea. What if it's hostile?_

_Oh, I can defend myself, Dad. I've got bug powers._

_You've got what now?_

No matter how I tried to play it, the conversation went downhill fast after that. And if I didn't tell him about my powers, he'd stop me from going, even if it was _my_ world. I'd discovered it, after all. It was _my_ right to be the first to explore it.

And of course, if I told him about the powers, that opened another huge can of Endbringer-sized worms. He'd know about me being a supervillain and he'd probably figure out that Lisa and Brian were villains as well. I'd ruin everything for everyone.

So it was better to not say _anything_ to _anyone_. Yeah. That was much safer.

<><>

By the time I finished my shower – I hadn't been lying about _that_ part – my headache was starting to come back, along with the first stirrings of common sense. Not very _strong_ stirrings, given the fact that I was still concussed, but stirrings all the same. I squashed both headache and common sense ruthlessly with a painkiller pill, washed down with a glass of water that I'd brought upstairs with my sandwich.

Firmly closing my bedroom door, I changed into what I thought was sensible alternate-universe-exploring clothing. In the event, this was T-shirt, jeans and a hoodie. I stuffed a pepper spray tube into my pocket and made sure that the knife that I had used to de-toe Bakuda – carefully cleaned, _thank_ you very much – was secure in its sheath in the small of my back, under my hoodie. I wasn't being _totally_ clueless, after all. As an afterthought, I stuck my phone in my pocket as well. I didn't think I'd get coverage in the mirror-world, but if nothing else, I could get some photos.

After that, I had to decide how to climb into the alternate universe that I had discovered. Absently, I wondered if they'd call it Earth Taylor, or maybe Earth Rolyat, given that it seemed to be a mirror-world. Then I wondered why I was even wondering about that.

Climbing through was not the easiest thing in the world, even after I had cleared the stuff on my dresser to each side, and done the same with the stuff on mirror-Taylor's dresser as well. It felt really weird, reaching into a whole different world to move stuff around, but if I was going to be climbing through, I didn't want to break any of her stuff. Who knew, we might end up being besties. After all, who better to be my friend than someone who already knew me as well as I did?

The dresser didn't like it when I climbed up on to it; it rocked rather alarmingly and I thought it was going to fall. So I climbed off again.

But the rocking gave me an idea. The mirror was on a swivel; a little experimentation showed me that although the mirror-portal was fixed to mirror-Taylor's dresser mirror, I could move mine without affecting hers. So I lifted it off the swivel and put it face-up on the floor. Then, before I could talk myself out of it, I got down on to the floor and lowered myself through.

It felt really weird going through; as soon as any part of me passed over the threshold, it was dragged to one side – the 'down' side – and I ended up clambering down off of her dresser. Looking back through the mirror, I had a good view of my bedroom ceiling, and where the pain was peeling. Then I wondered why I was looking back at my _own_ bedroom, when I had a whole new world to explore, right here and now.

I looked around at mirror-Taylor's bedroom; unmade bed, clothes on the floor, smell of cigarette smoke … ew. The other me _smoked?_ Ew. I wasn't so sure if I was going to like her. I moved sideways, and my foot hit something that clinked. Glancing down, I saw what was obviously an alcohol bottle. It had hit another one. _Oh great, mirror-me drinks too._

Fighting down a profound sense of disappointment – I had crossed into another universe to find out that this world's version of me had two habits that I had nothing but distaste for – I looked at the posters on the walls. At least she had _those._ But in place of the Protectorate poster that held pride of place opposite my bed – it was an older one, missing Triumph – there was one that I thought at first was lettered in Russian. The backwards N was what confused me. Then I saw a backwards G, and frowned. I didn't think the Russians had that in their alphabet.

And then, of course, I realised what was going on. _I'm in a mirror-universe, duh. The writing's all going to be mirror-imaged._ I concentrated on the lettering, reading it from right to left, mentally reversing them. N … O … N … A … G … O … N. _Nonagon. Huh. A nine-sided figure. Cute name._ Then I looked at the people actually portrayed in the poster and recoiled so hard that I sat down on the bed.

I _knew_ those people. Everyone in America who hadn't been living under a rock for the last twenty _years_ knew them. But there was no way in hell that they should be on a poster.

Standing up again, I stepped forward, peering at the poster. _Wait a minute …_

The Siberian was easily recognisable, despite the fact that she wore a one-piece costume. Beside her, Jack Slash was posing proudly, holding a knife aloft. Flanking them … that was Mannequin, although his armour was designed a little oddly. And that there was Bonesaw, minus the blood-caked apron. Crawler was missing, though Shatterbird was there. Some capes I didn't know were filling in the gaps, but it was definitely them. Definitely the Slaughterhouse Nine.

_Here they're called … Nonagon? And people are putting **posters** out about them? Okay, that's really kind of weird._

I wasn't sure if I wanted to stay in this bedroom for much longer. A lot of the excitement of being in a whole new universe was starting to drain away. All the writing was reversed and I was having to concentrate to read any of it. Plus, the smell of stale cigarette smoke and, I was pretty sure, alcohol wasn't doing my headache any favours. I took a few photographs anyway, just because I could, then tucked the phone away again.

Carefully pulling the bedroom door open, I peered out into the corridor. My bugs still had mirror-Dad down in the living room, reading the paper. I wasn't really sure that I wanted to meet him, even if he thought I was his real daughter. _Maybe I can sneak out past him. Duck down the front hall into the kitchen and out the back door._

_Or maybe I should just brazen it out. Walk down the stairs like I belong here._

Before I could talk myself out of it, I had decided to try the second idea. My footsteps thudded on the steps as I trotted downstairs. At the bottom of the steps, all I had to do was turn right, _not_ left, so that I would be heading along the front hall, toward the back door.

At the bottom of the steps, habit took over and I turned left. Into the living room. Right in front of mirror-Dad.

_Crap._

If I stopped, then he'd notice me more. I kept going.

“Taylor.” His voice was more grating than my Dad's. More raspy.

“Yeah?” I made my voice as non-committal as I could and kept on going.

“Thought you went out.”

“Came back,” I replied in a _well, duh_ sort of voice, not looking around. “Got changed.”

I was almost to the doorway into the kitchen. Behind me, he put the paper down; my bugs picked it up and I also heard the rustle. “Come here a moment.”

Reluctantly, I stopped and turned. _Mirror-Taylor smokes and drinks. She's rebellious._ “Can it wait? Got places to be.”

Rolling up the paper and tapping it on his knee, he pointed at the spot on the floor in front of him. When he spoke, I heard a tone that Dad had never used in front of me. “Here. Now.”

I walked over and stood in front of him; he looked up at me. “Got a kiss for your old Dad?”

_Aww,_ I thought. _It's nice that they're on good terms._ Leaning down, I went to kiss him on the cheek. But he grabbed me, and I found him kissing me hard, roughly, his lips pressed against mine. His tongue tried to press between my lips.

“Mmm! Mmmph!” I protested, struggling to get away. _What? What the hell is this?_

But he held on, one hand grabbing my breast through my shirt, squeezing it. Then he reached lower, cupping my crotch through my jeans, squeezing it.

I broke the kiss. “What the hell, Dad? What the fuck?”

“Do what I tell you, you little slut,” he grunted, trying to push my shirt up.

I struggled to get free, pushing at him. “No! No, what are you _doing?”_

“Oh, for fuck's sake,” he panted. “Just fucking take your pants down and let me fuck you.”

“No!” I shouted, my voice high with panic.

He slapped me.

The impact rang my eardrums and I fell backward to the living room floor. Dad was on top of me in a moment, pulling down at my waistband. I felt the denim sliding over my hips; frantically, I grabbed my pants and tried to pull them up. And then I felt the lump in my pocket.

_My_ Dad had given me that canister of pepper spray to help me protect myself from rapists. I doubted that he would ever believe that I was going to use it against someone who was him from another universe. Fumbling it out, I leaned back as far as I could and let him have it in the face.

He screamed and reared back, the acrid smell of capsaicin making my eyes water even though none of the spray had hit me. I scooted backward, then hastily stood and pulled my jeans up again. Roaring with agony and anger, he lumbered to his feet. He could see, barely, given that his glasses had protected his eyes to some extent. I wanted to run back upstairs to 'my' room and dive through the mirror, but he was blocking my way. So I ran for it; on an impulse, I snatched up the discarded paper and took it with me.

<><>

I got two blocks before I slowed down; there was no pursuit. Still, I kept moving; I was trying to head for the Boardwalk, or where the Boardwalk would be in this mirror-world, but I kept getting turned around. Finally I made it, then flopped down on a bench seat, breathing hard. That was only partially due to the exertion.

I couldn't believe it. My Dad – well, my mirror-Dad – had tried to _rape_ me. What sort of a world _was_ this?

Was he doing that to me – to mirror-me – on a _regular basis?_ Were this world's Dad and Taylor _fucking?_

Ew. Just _ew._ That was so _wrong,_ on _so_ many levels. I didn't even want to _visualise_ it.

Another thought took my breath away. What if this world had laws that _allowed_ that sort of sick shit? Or worse, _mandated_ it?

Ew, ew, fucking _ew._

I couldn't imagine _any_ version of me willingly going along with something like that. But then, I wouldn't have imagined any version of me smoking and drinking, either.

I'd read somewhere that people who were being abused took up self-destructive behaviour as a cry for help. Maybe that was what mirror-me was doing.

Which meant that I had to save her. From her own father.

My _next_ trick would be to figure out _how._

<><>

With a mental effort, I put that aside for the moment and addressed another problem. I hadn't really noticed it up until now, given all the other things on my mind, but I couldn't feel any bugs around me. The dozen or so bugs I'd sent into the house before exploring myself had been left back there; between the house and the Boardwalk, I hadn't once felt the distinctive signal of a bug 'reporting in'.

This was kind of frightening and disorienting, like waking up one day and finding out that one of your arms was missing. It was perhaps more so than when I'd gotten my powers. After all, I was _used_ to them now. Being able to control bugs was all kinds of amazing.

_On the other hand,_ I told myself, _maybe it's just a factor of being mirror-imaged. Maybe they're just on another frequency, or whatever it is. Maybe I can tap into it._

And maybe I couldn't. I had to face the fact that I was quite possibly without powers in this world. My sudden impulse to go exploring without backup and without telling anyone where I had gone was starting to look less and less sensible by the minute. A buzzing grew in my ears.

“Hey, are you all right?”

I looked up, startled. A man stood opposite me, peering at me carefully. He wasn't anyone I knew, or thought I knew; just a man, in his mid twenties or so. Panic closed my throat; was he about to try to molest me, as mirror-Dad had tried to do?

“I wouldn't have asked but you look like you're in pain or something.” His voice betrayed nothing but concern.

I realised that I'd been sitting hunched over, my hands clenched into fists at the sides of my head. I straightened up, relaxed my hands. “No, no, I'm good. I was just … thinking about something.”

“Oh, that's good then.” He smiled uncertainly. “Don't think too hard. You might hurt yourself.” A chuckle told me that this was supposed to be a joke.

“Yeah.” With an effort, I returned the chuckle. “Thanks.”

He moved off then; a few yards on, he glanced back at me. I gave him a smile and a brief wave; reassured, he went on. Leaning back against the bench, I found myself relaxing, a genuine smile starting to creep across my features. _Well, at least random strangers here can be nice._

The buzzing was back. To distract myself from it, I opened the paper and tried to read it. It was, of course, printed in reverse, so after a few moments I turned to the front page, all the way to the right. Concentrating as well as I could, I began to read the headlines and then work my way through the articles. People came strolling past, but if they found anything weird about a teenager reading the paper at the Boardwalk, nobody said anything.

DRUG STASH DESTROYED BY TEEN HEROES, said one article header. _Huh, so this world has the Wards as well. Cool._ MAYOR'S NIECE MISSING, stated another. That one got my attention, so I started to puzzle my way through the article.

I found it easier and easier as I went along, despite the buzzing in my ears; toward the end, I was reading almost as fast as I could normally. But I had to go back and re-read it, because it came across as _weird._

Apparently, this version of Brockton Bay also had a man called Roy Christner as Mayor. That much I could understand. Whether our Mayor Christner also had a niece called Dinah Alcott, I couldn't be sure. From the article, she had gone missing on the fourteenth; that was the day that I had robbed the Brockton Bay Central Bank with the Undersiders.

But what I couldn't get over was the _tone_ of the article. Christner was quoted as being 'very angry' and 'offering a large reward' to retrieve his wayward niece. However, the reporter who wrote the article seemed to be not very worried about the twelve year old's well-being. _It seems more likely that she's gone to the Market with her friends,_ the article read. _After all, who would abduct a child? Really?_

I had to stop and think about that. Now that I was reminded, there had been an Amber Alert in the paper, pushing our bank job off the front page. In this world, there seemed to be about the same level of interest as in a lost dog.

_Are people so callous here?_ I wondered. _Do they care so little?_ After all, my experience with mirror-Dad, apart from terrifying the living fuck out of me, had left me with a huge problem regarding his home life with mirror-me. _Can fathers rape their daughters with impunity? Is the tendency to do it so common?_

The buzzing ramped up in intensity, making my head begin to throb. I gasped, clenching my eyes shut as I clasped my hands over my temples. I forgot all the other problems I had as I tried to ride out the pain.

“Hey, are you all right? Is she all right?”

“I don't know. She looks like she's in pain.”

“Hey, kid. You all right there?”

“Do you need a doctor?”

The babble of voices surrounded me, startling me with its suddenness. I unclenched my eyes and looked around at the circle of faces that had appeared out of seemingly nowhere. Men and women, young and old. One little girl solemnly offered her ice-cream. An older man held out a bottle of water.

Abruptly, as if turned off by a switch, the headache was gone, as was the buzzing in my ears. I struggled to sit upright once more. Carefully, I waved away the ice-cream, but I accepted the bottle. Slowly, I sipped, letting the water trickle down my throat.

“Thanks, I'm fine now,” I told them. “Honestly, I'm all right. Thank you.”

The man who had offered water frowned slightly. “You looked as though you were really in pain there, kid. Do you want me to drive you to a doctor? I know a good one.”

Capping the bottle and handing it back, I shook my head. As sincere as he sounded, after my experience with mirror-Dad, there was no way in _hell_ I was getting into a car alone with a strange man. “No, I'll be fine, thanks. I'm feeling much better now.” I looked around at the crowd. “Really, I'll be all right. Thanks.”

Nodding to me, they began to move off. I paused, looking at my would-be benefactor. “Though … well, I hate to ask …”

“Yeah?” It was downright weird, the way he seemed to perk up at the chance to help me.

“Um, I don't have bus fare to get home, and …”

“Say no more,” he declared, pulling his wallet out and withdrawing a banknote from it. “This should get you home, as well as a sandwich or something if you get hungry on the way.” Looking at it, I finally realised that it was a twenty.

“I, uh, thanks, but -” I began to protest at the denomination of the note, but then I saw others around him, pulling their _own_ wallets out. One by one, each of them produced banknotes and handed them to him; I saw ones and twos, mainly. By the time they finished, he must have been reimbursed half again as much for what he'd given me. “ … uh, never mind. Thanks a lot. I mean it.”

He nodded firmly to me as he tucked the ones and twos away. “Think nothing of it. Have a nice day, kid.”

“You too,” I responded. Turning away, I headed off down the Boardwalk, looking for a bus stop. _Okay, that was weird. He was generous to me; they were generous to him. Nobody was out any large amount. But it was all … natural. Weird, weird world._

I had travelled a hundred yards before something else occurred to me; I could feel bugs in my vicinity. Slowly, yard by yard, my awareness of the local bug life was pushing its way outward once more. My power was back. _That's what the buzzing must have been. My power finding the new frequency._

_I wonder if I have to go through that again when I go back home. That'll be no fun at all._

Finally, I found a bus stop. Carefully, I began to read the schedule times. I needed to find the bus to the north ferry dock; if the local version of the Undersiders made their base in the same place as in my world, I could walk there in twenty minutes.

_Boy, are they gonna be surprised to see **me.**_

End of Part Eleven


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